Ano Turtiainen has been ousted as leader of the Power Belongs to the People party (called Valta kuuluu kansalle, or VKK in Finnish).
The decision to remove Turtiainen as party chair was made at an extraordinary general meeting on Saturday evening.
Antti Asikainen, chair of the party's Kouvola branch, will temporarily replace Turtiainen as VKK leader until a new board is elected at this summer's party congress.
In a statement, the party said it wanted to distance itself from Turtiainen's "illegal actions" as well as his personal links with Russia, which it said does not reflect the party's policies or values.
Turtiainen is no stranger to controversy. In 2020, when he was a Finns Party MP, he published a racist tweet mocking George Floyd, the man who was choked to death by a police officer in Minneapolis. This led to his expulsion from the Finns Party's parliamentary group before he was expelled from the party in 2021.
He then established VKK and was the party's only representative in parliament until he lost his seat at last year's election.
In May 2022 Turtiainen told Russian television that he did not believe the results of opinion polls showing public support in Finland for joining Nato. He claimed that Finland was dominated by a "globalist" elite.
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