Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening Finland with “problems” due to the country’s entry into NATO.
“There were no problems before, but there will be now. Because we will now create the Leningrad Military District and concentrate certain military units there. Why do they need this? Nonsense,” Putin said in an interview for the Moscow. Kremlin. Putin program.
The Kremlin leader supposedly argues that there have been no conflicts between Russia and Finland so far. “They took Finland and pulled it into NATO. Did we have any conflicts? All conflicts, including territorial ones, were long resolved in the mid-20th century. The relations were the kindest and most serious,” Putin is convinced.
At the same time, the Russian president supposedly does not want a conflict with NATO. “Did we have any problems with anyone? No, with no one. They [NATO] create problems with us because they don’t want such a competitor in the form of Russia,” Putin stated.
Finland became the 31st member of NATO on April 4. The country’s accession to the Alliance increased the border of the military-political union with Russia by about 1300 kilometers, or twice. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Finland did not plan to abandon its neutral status, which it had maintained for decades.
Currently, Russia, among other things, is terrorizing the border of Finland with illegal migrants. The Russian side is using hybrid warfare tactics on the Finnish border, repeating the scenario of the “migration crisis” on the border between Poland and Belarus and attempting to destabilize NATO, writes the Institute for the Study of War. In recent weeks, Finland has completely closed its borders with Russia.
Earlier, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Europe has 5 to 8 years to “catch up” in defense and prepare for new threats.
Cover: open sources