It's a complex question, between the independence and Cold War politics. Finland during the Cold War played a fairly successful game of neutrality and realpolitik (much like other minors like Austria) trying to appease his powerful neighbor without leaving too much of its own independence on the floor.
And note how the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War, basically left Finland to do as they wanted, as long as they remained neutral.
Sure, the Finns had to be careful not to piss their powerful neighbor off. Even bought Soviet military hardware. But as long as the Finns remained neutral, the Soviets let them keep both their democracy and their capitalist economy.
So much for the myth of the implacable Muscovites who want to rule all of Eastern Europe.
On a more serious point, I'd wonder if Cold War Finland would not have been a good example for Ukraine in this era.
It certainly could. In fact, that was the situation prior to 2014. Russian businesses invested in Ukraine, there was ample trade, cheap gas. And the Ukrainians got to keep their independence.
In fact, you might say that the relationship was to the detriment of Russia. In the form of excessively cheap gas to keep the Hohols on side, and a dependence on Ukrainian industry. After 2014, Russia had to scramble to find new sources for engines and mikitary hardware parts, since they had largely kept the supply lines from the SovietUnion.
Many people don't know that soviets' fears weren't completely baseless.
Viipuri massacre
Also the Finnish army planned several expeditions to capture more land near Petrograd during the civil war.
Aunus expedition
Viena expedition
Their fears were absolutely founded in fact. The Bolsheviks still remembered the Allied military expedition during the civil war, where the English straight up occupied parts of Russia.
Leaving Leningrad 20 miles from the border, a days march or a few hours drive by an armored column, was a significant worry.
Even if the Finns weren’t hostile, there was a real danger of Germany or the U.K. mounting an invasion of southern Finland and swoop across the border into some of the USSR’s most important industrial areas.
They swallow it because of pilpul's irresistably delicate scent wafts into the nostrils of the goy, the goy brain turns off whatever little processes it had going inside.
Also boomer brain worm.
Some folks were steeped in Cold War paranoia and Russophobia from an early age. The end of the Cold War, without TOTAL RUSSIAN DEFEAT felt like a wet fart to those people.
Sure, the western side sorta won the Cold War. But there was still a Russia left, rich in natural resources, and that can’t stand!