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Notes -
Of course, "we are too soft and nice smol beans and beating our enemies means we need to become hard and cruel (like the enemy!)" has been a part of the nationalist repertoire even before this war, expect moreso connected to narratives like "Us Finns (or Westerners in general) are too trusting and naive, we get exploited by lying fake asylum seekers and criminals and terrorists and foreign-aid-dependent dictators", precisely by politicians like Halla-aho. And there's a historical connection too, the Finnish far-right 30s explicitly repeated over and over again that Finns need to learn to hate Russians, writing books with titles like "The Only Way To Speak About A Russki Is While Grinding Your Teeth" and so-on - such tendencies were effectively then pushed deep to the recess by the war and the assorted beatings, but since this idea of deliberately hardening your own supposedly soft constituency seems to be culturally inbuilt in various nations, it perhaps only waited for an opportunity to get out again.
So in a way it's only too natural a narrative for him, especially now that it's harder than usual for other politicians to condemn him (not impossible, since they have done so). Indeed, he might find unexpected sympathy for harsh rhetoric even among liberals who would usually condemn him, "I do not usually share things by Halla-aho but this..." not being an unusual occurrence in Finnish liberal social media sphere. As such, one might say that it goes beyond just Russian/Ukrainian war question and is a part of a greater effort to make harsh, "realistic" us/them rhetoric acceptable - strike while the iron is hot, and all that.
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