Finland withdraws candidate who called Ukraine part of Russia from elections

The coalition party has excluded candidate Johanna Turja from the regional electoral list in Satakunta Region after her statements that Ukraine is part of Russia. This was reported by the Yle edition with reference to the statement of the head of the regional branch Antti Ahonen.

It is specified that Turja in the social network Facebook (owned by the recognized extremist company Meta, its activities are banned in Russia) wrote that the borders of Ukraine "have never been officially confirmed", and the country itself has always been "part of the Russian Federation".

"The reason for withdrawing the candidate is lack of trust", Ahonen said.

He noted that Turja is also a candidate in the municipal elections in the Finnish city of Pori, and the Pori party branch will make a similar decision.

"We tried to contact Turja to get her to tell us what is behind her comments. However, she has not responded to us," Ahonen concluded.

Earlier, on February 14, it was reported that four members of the European Parliament (EP) representing Finland called for relations between the regional commonwealth and Russia.