SUPO intelligence analysts need to be able to make bold assessments

Intelligence analysts are professionals at piecing together complex entities quickly. SUPO’s analysis work and information gathering are planned operations, but some of the analysis work also lives in the moment in accordance with what happens in the surrounding world. The focus of this work is usually largely on the same subjects as in the news. 

“In the morning, I don't always necessarily have any idea of what I’ll be writing a report about in the afternoon”, says a senior analyst at SUPO, who works on Russian topics.

From the perspective of SUPO intelligence analysts, the global security environment has become more complex in recent years. There are active operators in many directions, which means that even analysts focusing on a narrow subject area must monitor the world in a very comprehensive manner.

“It’s easier to commentate on a game of chess when you see all the pieces”, the senior analyst says.

Different scenarios are considered and some of them even written in advance, but what really happens may still surprise you. In rapidly evolving situations, the importance of filtering false information becomes emphasised in the analysis work. 

“Initially, all news events should be taken with a grain of salt. Almost always, some piece of information reported in the early stages of a significant event has resulted from someone having misunderstood or over-interpreted something. Sometimes it takes courage to keep calm in such situations”, the senior analyst says.

When doing analysis work surrounded by uncertainty, the senior analyst says that they seek foundations for the analysis from the most traditional of sources, such as printed books, the laws of physics and mass psychology. The senior analyst is of the opinion that citizens should also keep their desire to float on top of the latest news streams in check and remember to take time for reflecting on matters.

The world situation has been reflected in SUPO’s work as increased and intensified cooperation between authorities both nationally and internationally.

The clients of the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service include the top-level national government in Finland. SUPO’s clients are very familiar with national security themes, which analysts must take into account in their reports. The national government also receives a huge amount of information every day, so the analyses must be concise. Keeping the analyses short takes more time.

“Our clients are interested in SUPO’s analysis of world events, and I feel that they are also listening to what we have to say. There is plenty of room for logical and comprehensive analysis in today’s world”, says the senior analyst.

As an intelligence service, SUPO produces as much of its reported information as possible through its own intelligence acquisition, but a large amount of intelligence is also exchanged as part of international cooperation.

In its intelligence reporting, SUPO’s aims to provide forward-looking information in a timely manner. There is no point in reporting information that has already been broadcast in the media. In addition to reporting unique intelligence, the intelligence service is also expected to have enough courage to assess possible future developments.

“It would be very easy to write a highly general intelligence assessment that is 100 % accurate, but it would not provide any added value for the client. The intelligence service must be able to tell when things are developing in an undesirable direction and tolerate unreliable information”, the senior analyst says.

SUPO´s clients

In 2025, SUPO asked the key persons of their stakeholder groups how the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service had succeeded in cooperating with them and how high did their organisations consider the threat of intelligence and influencing targeted at them to be.

90% are satisfied with their cooperation with SUPO. (In 2021: 75%)

44% consider the threat of intelligence operations and influencing targeted at their organisation to be high or very high.