If this is not a ripple in northern geopolitics, I don't know what is. I'll give you that it currently isn't as important if Sweden joins or not. Erdogan made the impossible possible - having Finland join before Sweden.
The standard for Russian satellite state is Belarus, not Finland.
Finland has been occupied multiple times by Russia and ceded 10% of its land to the USSR in an attempt to make peace. Heck, some even argue that Finland did a "redo" of one of their parliamentary elections because the USSR didn't like the results. Joining NATO is a major departure from their many decades of attempting appeasement - it's far from a nothingburger.
It may be an even bigger deal inside Russia though: Putin directly triggered one of the very specific things Russia didn't want to have happen. This both arms his domestic critics and raises the pressure for him to deliver some sort of "win".
Now the cat's out of the bag, and there's no reason for them not to formally join the alliance (Ankara willing). But it doesn't change any strategic calculus.