During the First World War Russia replaced various Finnish officials with Russians. Svinhufvud refused to obey the orders of the Russian procurator Konstantin Kazansky, which he considered illegal, and this led to his removal from office as a judge and being exiled to Tomsk in Siberia in November 1914. In his Siberian exile, he spent his time hunting and mending his clothes, still keeping secret contact with the independence movement. When he left Finland, he had promised to return ""with the help of God and Hindenburg"". When news of the February Revolution reached Svinhufvud, he walked to the town's police station and bluntly announced, ""The person who sent me here has been arrested. Now I'm going home."" In Helsinki he was greeted as a national hero.