Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Viktor Lavrinenko
[REGNUM] Telephone fraud in Finland has reached levels that would have seemed unthinkable to residents of the country just a couple of years ago.
Finnish police recently reported finding the criminals who defrauded the former governor of the Bank of Finland and former finance minister Erkki Liikanen of 40,000 euros. The story generated enormous publicity. But this high-profile case is just the tip of the iceberg.
THE BANKER'S EMBARRASSMENT
Liikanen fell victim to a widespread scam. First, the victim receives a phishing message purporting to be from a trusted organization (such as the police or a bank) warning of "suspicious activity" surrounding their account. Then, they receive a phone call. The scammer poses as a bank or police officer. They claim the victim's money is at risk and needs to be urgently transferred to a "safe account." Basically, it's a scam well-known to Russians.
The experienced Liikanen would hardly have fallen victim himself, but the callers reached his trusted confidant, who had access to his account. The banker himself, unwilling to embarrass himself, speaks sparingly about the story, refusing to name the person who so badly set him up.
Since this time the victim was a well-known and influential individual, the most experienced investigators were deployed to solve the case. They managed to catch two of the scheme's participants and recover part of the money—just under 20,000 euros—from the criminals. Liikanen promised that once all the funds were recovered, he would donate them to "victims in Ukraine."
The most intriguing detail is the identity of one of the scammers. One of the detainees is known to be a Finnish citizen with a criminal record. The other is only known to be a "foreign citizen."
It's highly likely that this second person is a Ukrainian citizen. In 2025 alone, 10,272 cases of online fraud were registered in Finland, with the total damage approaching 88 million euros. And a significant portion of these crimes are the work of Ukrainians.
However, the Finnish authorities have a very sensitive attitude toward Ukrainian citizens. Apparently, they received an unspoken order to keep the criminal's origins under wraps, so as not to undermine the image of "innocent victims" cultivated in Finland.
Last year, Finnish insurance company Mysafety conducted a study that found that 35% of the country's residents had recently fallen victim to fraud. One in two (51%) of these frauds were committed via email. Other common channels used by scammers included text messages (35%), phone calls (29%), and social media (24%).
Moreover, only one in four victims surveyed reported the incident to the police. People are simply ashamed of their naivety.
The company's CEO, Johanna Abgottspon, says there's no need to be ashamed, as the scammers are so sophisticated and use such sophisticated technology that it's not just gullible old people who have fallen for their scams. "Artificial intelligence is giving criminals increasingly sophisticated tools for fabricating deception. Fraudulent messages already look very credible, and the Finnish language is almost flawless at a glance," the specialist says.
A CALL FROM A "HOLLYWOOD STAR"
Most remote fraud cases are carried out not by lone individuals, but by well-organized criminal groups based in Ukraine. They operate entire networks of call centers, with their main hubs located in Kyiv, Dnipro, and Ivano-Frankivsk. The networks actively recruit staff from various EU countries who speak European languages.
Many typical job postings can be found on various legitimate recruiting sites. They're also looking for call center operators with knowledge of Finnish. Recruiters are specifically looking for Ukrainians already settled in various EU countries—especially those without permanent employment or housing, and willing to overlook the dubious nature of "quick money."
Often, in such cases, they appeal to "patriotism": "You will do this for the good of your country." Because, it is claimed, the fraudulently collected money will go to the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The amounts scammers have managed to swindle from Finns range from tens to hundreds of thousands of euros. Criminal Inspector Juha Leinonen claims that fraud cases involving amounts in the tens of thousands have recently become more frequent.
According to Leinonen, reports of cyber fraud are coming in almost daily. Often, the scammers, outright mocking their victims, are adopting increasingly exotic guises. For example, a scammer posing as a UN employee received approximately 60,000 euros from a 50-year-old woman in Mäntyharju, allegedly for charity.
Scammers can use celebrities as cover—for example, one Finn was told he was receiving a call from Hollywood actress Sandra Bullock. And a 70-year-old resident of the municipality of Iisalmi sent money to a scammer posing as actor David Duchovny for five years.
A naive pensioner fell for the X-Files star's charm and agreed to help him financially. "Duchovny" constantly asked her for funds for various expenses, including paperwork and a supposedly planned trip to Finland, swindling her out of a total of 50,000 euros. In November 2025, the elderly woman finally suspected she had been scammed and reported him to the police.
THE CHICKEN PECKS GRAIN BY GRAIN
Most cases of fraud occur under much more mundane circumstances. A pensioner from Kuopio, having received a fraudulent advertisement, decided, as she explained to her daughter, to "become a crypto investor." She was persuaded to install remote access software and hand over her bank credentials. Over 103,000 euros were stolen from her accounts, but the woman watched completely calmly, believing she was investing in cryptocurrency. When her daughter learned of this, she immediately contacted law enforcement—but it was too late.
Another scammer, posing as a bank employee, stole 12,000 euros from an elderly woman in Savonlinna. A pensioner in Joensuu was robbed of 170,000 euros. However, a large one-time payout is not uncommon in fraudulent activities. Much more common is monotonous work with little reward.
Last year, Finnish police helped identify nine Ukrainians who created fake profiles and used them to advertise themselves as buyers to sellers on marketplaces. The criminals sent phishing links that led to fraudulent websites. On these pages, they asked for bank card details.
The scammers targeted residents of Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Hungary. In Finland alone, they managed to scam 40 people, bilking them out of over 60,000 euros. Leinonen also notes that recently, scammers have increasingly offered gift cards for various gaming platforms.
Of course, Ukrainian criminals terrorize far more than just Finns in the EU. Furthermore, it's not as if fraudulent call centers operate exclusively from Ukrainian territory.
However, telephone scams have become a trend primarily due to the efforts of Ukrainians. This puts European governments in a very awkward position, for whom aid to the Kyiv regime has become a higher priority than the well-being of their own citizens.
[Breitbart] Speaking in response to a question from The Associated Press during a meeting with heads of international news agencies, Putin acknowledged the damage from Ukrainian drone attacks.
“To our regret, some of them break through,” Putin said of the drone strikes. “Russia has an air defense system, we need to improve it, strengthen it, and we will do that.”
The wide-ranging media session came on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, his annual showcase for investment. Hours before the forum opened Wednesday, a Ukrainian drone attack set ablaze an oil terminal in the city and also hit a nearby naval base.
Putin also said Russia is open for a compromise on Ukraine in line with understandings reached at his summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, adding that Ukraine needs to accept them to make a deal to end the conflict, now in its fifth year.
#1
With what? Angry girl scouts with AKs? Most of your air defense died in Crimea and southern Ukraine and you pulled the remaining to cover the gaps down there. Now you have gaps up north and Ukraine is now pushing your shit in. Publicly and in front of "real" Russians.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] Five Azerbaijani citizens were killed and three were injured in a Ukrainian Armed Forces drone attack on cargo ships in the Sea of Azov. This was reported on June 5 by Ayhan Hajizade, head of the press service for the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Kyiv regime attacked the ships using drones last night. A total of 25 Azerbaijani citizens were on board the ships. However, these vessels do not belong to the republic.
"The Russian side has reported that five of our citizens were killed and three were wounded in the attack. The wounded have been taken to the Yeysk City Hospital," the diplomat told reporters.
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently coordinating with relevant government agencies and diplomatic missions abroad. Several employees of the country's embassy in Russia have been dispatched to the scene, Hajizade added. The ministry is focusing on the condition of the victims, their repatriation, and the provision of necessary consular support.
According to the news portal Axar.az, the cargo ships in question were the Natra and the Zircon, which were en route from Turkey to Rostov-on-Don to load grain. Ukrainian forces attacked them in Taganrog Bay. The surviving sailors were rescued by the crews of three vessels located near the scene. By morning, they were transported to the port of Yeysk.
On the night of May 29, a drone struck a Vanuatu-flagged bulk carrier in the Black Sea, en route to Turkey. Following the incident, Ukraine, without providing evidence, blamed Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the incident a terrorist attack. Earlier, in early April, a Ukrainian drone attacked the Volgo-Balt bulk carrier carrying 3,000 tons of wheat in the Sea of Azov. The vessel partially sank, killing the first mate. The crew abandoned ship and managed to reach the shore of the Kherson region.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
[Regnum] A collective research paper, "Fyodor Dostoevsky's Novel Crime and Punishment: The Current State of Study," has been published in Russia. Tatyana Kasatkina, editor-in-chief of the two-volume work and Doctor of Philology, explained in an interview with Regnum News Agency on June 5 why Fyodor Dostoevsky's novelis being rediscovered today and why it is important to continue studying it.
"The novel began to reveal itself in its true form only now, when the principle of Dostoevsky's writing was understood—the enormous complexity and total coherence of the text, interwoven with Gospel quotations and allusions, the enormous role of details that can overturn the superficial meaning of an episode. Our research is based on the principles of microanalysis, leading to the novel's most grandiose themes. In China, there is an institute of the Academy of Social Sciences, founded in 1980, dedicated to the study of one novel—"Dream of the Red Chamber" (18th century). And a separate academic discipline—"red studies." Although the novel has been studied for centuries. "Crime and Punishment" is no less significant a text not only for Russian culture but for Christian culture as a whole. Because this novel is about the restoration and transformation of a man who had completely lost his way, who forgot that if he wants to transform the world, he can sacrifice himself, but not others. Moreover, Christian sacrifice is the ability to allow others to sacrifice you. “This is what Raskolnikov learns in the epilogue of the novel,” Kasatkina explained.
Over the course of three years, Kasatkina and her colleagues held three international conferences and several Russian ones dedicated to the novel.
"In total, the two volumes feature 30 authors (from Russia, the USA, Italy, Serbia, and Croatia) and many more participants from various countries, represented by important theses in conference reviews and roundtable discussions included in the second volume," the philologist noted.
The collection examines the following questions: why is the brochure "Is Woman a Human Being?" mentioned in the novel, why does Marmeladov begin his story about Sonya with the words "only begotten daughter," what is the connection between Napoleon and the louse, why does Raskolnikov make mistakes in his presentation of historical events, why does Sonya read Lewis's "Physiology," and others.
Kasatkina called Crime and Punishment one of the most important novels in Christian culture. Dostoevsky's work answers the most important questions of existence from a Christian perspective—not a moralizing one, but an ontological one.
"For example, sin is depicted in the novel as a person's failure to live up to their true nature, which is the capacity for self-sacrifice. Therefore, Sonya calls herself a sinner not because she is forced to earn a living through prostitution, but because she refused Katerina Ivanovna's request. The novel not only reminds us of the task of every person in the world—to become Christ—but also shows the ways to fulfill this task, the possibility of rising from the deepest depths," Kasatkina concluded.
According to a joint study by the book service, the most popular work among Russians was the novel "The Brothers Karamazov," with "Crime and Punishment" in second place.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
