A politician of Russian origin won the Helsinki mayoral election

Daniel Sazonov’s family moved to Finland in the 1990s.

Coalition Party candidate Daniel Sazonov, who is of Russian origin, will become mayor of the Finnish capital Helsinki, according to the results of the municipal elections held on April 13, yle.fi reports .

In the capital of Finland, the Coalition Party led the elections, while according to the results of the count across the country, the Social Democratic Party of Finland, which had previously been in opposition and did not participate in the formation of the government, won both regional and municipal elections.

Sazonov is of Russian origin, his family moved to Finland in the 1990s, although he was born in Helsinki. He received Finnish citizenship at the age of 9.

According to yle.fi , until spring 2022 he was a columnist for the anti-Ukrainian propaganda newspaper “Finnish Newspaper”, aimed at a Russian-speaking audience in Finland. It is noted that he stopped writing for this publication a few months after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.

He later stated that he strongly condemned Russian aggression and supported sanctions against the Russian Federation and Ukraine.

“I don’t want to have anything to do with pro-Russian forces. I stopped writing for the newspaper when I was no longer sure that it unequivocally condemned Russia’s illegal aggressive war. Since then, I have had no contact with the newspaper,” the publication quotes Sazonov as saying.

(C)UNIAN 2025