Swedish military TV personality Joakim Paasikivi calls for Western powers to remilitarize the Åland Islands, a culturally Swedish autonomous region of Finland that has been demilitarized since the Crimean war of 1854.
The demilitarization and autonomy of Åland is the result of a conflict in the early 20th century between Sweden and Finland, which was resolved diplomatically in 1921 in the predecessor of the United Nations – the League of Nations. The peaceful solution that has been studied in many contexts as a diplomatic success that has become internationally known as “The Åland Islands Solution”. The background was Finland’s recent independence from Russia in 1917 and the prominent so-called Åland Movement, in which the Swedish-speaking population of Åland pushed for Åland to join Sweden. A Swedish annexation was generally seen as desirable from the Swedish side as well, primarily for military strategic reasons as Åland is very closely situated to Stockholm.
Åland thereby became a partially autonomous part of Finland with international guarantees to preserve its Swedish language and culture. The demilitarization of Åland after the Crimean War in 1856 was also consolidated as a guarantee on behalf of Sweden that there would be no military fortifications on the islands.
“Revisit the demilitarization”
The comments by Joakim Paasikivi, lieutenant colonel and teacher of military strategy at the Department of War Studies at the Swedish Defence University in Stockholm, come in the wake of Russia’s defense ministry expressing its desire to move the maritime border in the Baltic Sea towards Finland and Lithuania.
”I personally think that the Åland Treaty and the demilitarization of Åland should be reviewed” he told the Schibsted newspaper Aftonbladet.
The military figure, who is well-known from Swedish television for commenting on the war in Ukraine, also calls for the removal of the Russian consulate in Mariehamn, which was established in connection with the Finnish-Soviet peace treaty after the 1940 Winter War.
”It would not surprise me at all if Russia wanted to discuss the Åland Treaty” Paasikivi says.
Great-grandson of Finnish President
Paasikivi graduated from the Swedish Military Academy Karlberg in 1987. From 2006 to 2018, he worked for the Swedish Military Intelligence and Security Service – MUST. He is the grandson of Juho Kusti Paasikivi, Finnish president between 1946 to 1956. and was born a Finnish citizen in Stockholm in 1960, to an Estonian mother and a Finnish father.
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