Author: Vojtěch Berger, HlidaciPes.org
She became famous as “the one who found the troll farm in St. Petersburg”. But the award-winning Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro is no longer in the media in the true sense of the word. “I needed some fresh air,” she tells in an interview wuth HlídacíPes.org, describing why she switched from journalism to head the union’s communications department after years of facing stalking and threats over her job. “But I haven’t changed sides, I’m still working in the interests of the citizens,” she says, adding that she has just finished the manuscript of her third book on Russian hybrid warfare.
When Johan Bäckman received Russian citizenship by decree of Vladimir Putin last autumn, Jessikka Aro was not surprised. Bäckman was one of those who waged smear campaigns and threatened the journalist over her interest in Russian propaganda.
In 2022, this Finnish academic with close ties to Russia and its state media was sentenced to a suspended prison sentence for his threats against Jessika Aro: “I think he should be stripped of his Finnish citizenship. I don’t see why he should still keep it,” says Aro.
Our GRU correspondent…
The interview in Prague takes place a few days after the cooperation of exiled Belarusian journalist Natalia Sudliankova with the Russian secret service GRU came to light. Sudliankova lived in the Czech Republic until 2025.
As HlídacíPes.org also reported, the Czech television channel CNN Prima News used an associate of Russian state media outlets RIA Novosti and Sputnik in its broadcasts until this March. Jessikka Aro cannot recall a similar case from Finland.
However, according to her, the fingerprints of the Russian secret services can be seen in some articles published by the Finnish mainstream media. “In almost every text where they describe Donald Trump’s efforts in the so-called peace talks with Russia. It seems to come straight from the headquarters of the GRU secret service,” she clarifies.
At the same time, Finland, like the Czech Republic, is currently going through a debate about the future of public media funding. MPs have ordered the public broadcaster Yle to make savings of €66 million by 2027. Yet the situation is different compared to the Czech Republic.
“People are at least unanimous about how trustworthy public news and content is. The high credibility numbers are almost reminiscent of North Korea,” Aro says with smile. Finns, she says, have for generations taken public service programming, from children’s programming to the evening news, as a firm part of their tradition.
Public broadcaster Yle is also a leader in innovation and the use of artificial intelligence, and other media outlets often copy it. And also criticise it.
“The commercial media are going after Yle hard as someone who is destroying the market in their eyes. So the backlash against the public media comes more from the commercial media than from, say, far-right politicians, conspirators and people who don’t want to pay for this ‘propaganda’, as they call it,” Aro clarifies.
Similarly, some Czech commercial television and radio stations are also strongly opposed to the increase in the stagnant licence fees for Czech Television and Czech Radio as it was adopted by the Czech parliament in spring 2025.
Trolls are not funny
Ten years after Jessikka Aro began describing Russian trolls, i.e. organised groups of people producing coordinated online content in the interests of Russia, much is different. Artificial intelligence has pretty much changed the rules of the game, bringing hybrid warfare literally into everyone’s living room.
But at the same time, hidden and remote “farms” similar to the one in St. Petersburg that once made Jessikka Aro famous are still operating: “I visited one such former troll farm in Ghana. It was on the edge of town and really well hidden. From there, messages aimed at African-Americans in the U.S. were spread to radicalize them by overemphasizing the problem of police violence.”
Jessikka Aro has been getting questions about Russian “trolls” constantly for the last few years. Yet she says the label needs to be handled with care:
“When you talk about Russian trolls, it sounds kind of funny. It sounds like something you don’t have to take too seriously. But when you know that these trolls are organized by Russian military intelligence – like soldiers, you suddenly understand why it’s not funny at all.”
