Over 20 Finnish MPs Report Home Break-Ins Amid Suspected Russian Intimidation

More than 20 members of Finland’s parliament have reported break-ins at their homes, raising concerns about possible intimidation by Russian intelligence agents, according to Metro. One elected official said an intruder defecated in his bathroom. Other cases reportedly involved personal belongings being disturbed. Finnish lawmaker Ben Zyskowicz speculated that the break-ins might be designed to make politicians uneasy. “It’s a way for the Russian intelligence service to show that people are being monitored, a way to create confusion or concerns,” he said. Finnish Parliament Speaker Jussi Halla-aho called the number of cases “significant.” The report did not determine who carried out the break-ins. Comparable episodes in the past have been connected to Russian intelligence activity. The report also noted that the US State Department has recorded cases where items were shifted and windows left open, seemingly in bids to “intimidate” those targeted. In her memoir, a onetime BBC Russia correspondent recalled that intruders had left a “large unflushed deposit” in every toilet at her residence. The accounts emerge as ties between Helsinki and Moscow remain fraught following Finland’s NATO entry in 2023, a move that significantly lengthened the alliance’s frontier with Russia. Moscow has also enlarged its military footprint close to Finland since then. The report stated that around 130 facilities meant to house 2,000 troops have been built in Kamenka, about 35 miles from Finnish land, since February 2025. Finland, meanwhile, is reinforcing its own defenses and setting up a NATO forward command hub in Lapland. In 2023, Helsinki shut the Russian border, saying Moscow had helped channel a wave of migrants across it. Joel Linnainmäki, a research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told Metro in 2025 that traffic at the shuttered border had stayed sparse. “There’s been very little activity, just some individuals attempting to cross,” he said. “It doesn’t appear that it’s going to be open anytime soon, and the government is very careful and suspicious as well.” Linnainmäki noted that the war in Ukraine has limited Moscow’s capacity to broaden its military footprint near Finland, though it is steadily reconstructing the Leningrad military district.