Every time we went to a supermarket – anywhere and everywhere – there he was on the front page of the Finnish tabloids: the Vlad. 

We saw him so many times glaring from the front pages that eventually we bought one of the newspapers and then asked a young Finnish guy at the check out what the text under The Vlad said. He answered in a rather flippant way (he was obviously a student working part time and didn’t take the tabloid media too seriously) 

Putin’s Wild Plans!  

He told us. 

He was not only on the front page with his wild plans but also on three other pages inside…… 

Finland of course is presently negotiating to join Nato. I don’t think that Vlad would be planning to invade Finland any time soon.

Everyone here goes into national service and within 24 hours the Finns can put a million soldiers directly into action. In addition, they have some of the most advanced defense systems in the world. 

Not a country to tangle with.