Is the War in Ukraine Driving Wolf Attacks in Finland?

Record numbers of Finnish reindeer are being killed in wolf attacks – and the war in Ukraine could be to blame.

Herders suspect that the drafting of hunters into the Russian army means numbers of the canine predators are soaring, so competition for food means more are roaming further afield in search of prey.

A record 2,124 reindeer were reported to have been killed by wolves in 2025, according to the Reindeer Herders’ Association of Finland – likely to be a fraction of the true total. Witnesses say the skeletons they find in the forests are often chewed down to the bone.

Juha Kujala a reindeer herder releases his animals into the wilderness on the 1,500km Finnish-Russian border each spring to feed on lichens, grass and mushrooms.

But since 2022, grisly discoveries of reindeer skeletons have disrupted this ancient way of life.

‘The last year has been the worst ever for wolf attacks in this area. The reindeer are an easy catch for them,’ Kujala told the UK’s Guardian newspaper.

‘You can see the signs that it is wolves: they go for the throat and the legs. When you’ve seen enough dead ones, you can tell. My home is 38km from the Russian border. When it snows, you can see the tracks coming from their side.’

Kujala’s family has been herding reindeer in Kuusamo, northern Finland, for over 400 years. More recently, he’s also opened his land to the hordes of tourists.

But although he suspects the drafting of men to fight on the frontline of Russia’s war he added that there is almost no contact across the border between Finland and Russia, so it is not possible to get any firm information on wolf numbers and movement.

Until last June, the wolf was a strictly protected species in the EU, following its near-extinction in many countries. However, its conservation status was downgraded after numbers almost doubled across Europe, from 11,193 to 20,300, between 2012 and 2023.

The Price of Rising Wolf Attacks

The Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry estimates that the owner of a female reindeer in her prime incurs a US$1,835 (AED6,739) loss when she is killed. Additionally, herders report that they now spend much of their time applying for compensation for their losses from the Finnish government, which they complain is insufficient to cover their costs.

‘It feels really sad. Really, really sad,’ said Kujala who calls his farm ‘The World of Reindeer,’  and offers reindeer yoga and reindeer sleigh rides through the snowy forests.

‘The balance is not right. The wolves are so many that they threaten the whole system here. They just kill, kill, kill. Now they are hunting people in Ukraine, there’s nobody left hunting the wolves.

‘If we don’t do anthing, in a few years whole areas – no reindeer anymore. That’s sad, because it’s the oldest thing in the whole of Finland: reindeer herding.’

Finland lifted its ban on wolf hunting at the start of 2026, instead implementing a hunting quota system to limit population growth.

Ilpo Kojola, a wolf specialist with Finland’s Natural Resources Institute, said ‘The wolf is a species that can increase rapidly. They are usually pretty limited by hunting in Russia so that’s why it is possible that the war in Ukraine has had some role in the change. But it’s impossible to be conclusive because, of course, there could be some other reason that we do not have solid evidence for.’

The Finnish wolf population was about 430 in spring last year, according to official statistics, and is part of the same subspecies as those in Russia, which is home to an estimated 60,000.

Kojola says there is a precedent for the rapid increase in Russia’s wolf population when, during the second world war, numbers doubled after millions of men were sent to fight against Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union’s western front.

Mia Valtonen, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Institute, is responsible for the genetic testing of wolves shot to control populations said the majority of the wolves shot in Finland in recent years do not appear to be from the country.

‘We cannot say for sure that most of these wolves come from Russia. It’s likely, but we cannot say it for sure,’ she said.