Moscow- Russia has said that it will be forced to take “retaliatory steps” over its neighbour Finland’s move to join NATO. A foreign ministry statement said that the move would seriously damage bilateral relations and security in Northern Europe.
The Russian statement has described Finland’s move as “ a radical change in the country’s foreign policy. Moscow has asserted that “Finland’s accession to NATO will cause serious damage to the bilateral Russia-Finnish relations and maintain stability in the Northern European region.” Moscow also said that “Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, to neutralize the threats to its national security.”
Russia’s deputy UN representative Dmitry Polyansky said that Sweden and Finland would become the next possible targets for Russia if they became NATO members.
Finland shares a 1,300km border with Russia. Until now, it stayed out of NATO to avoid the drastic steps taken by Russia, but since Russia invaded Ukraine, there has been a huge surge in public support to join NATO “without any delay.”
Finland will formally announce its decision on Sunday after they will discuss the NATO membership in the parliament and other senior political figures. While the NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that he expects the process of giving Sweden and Finland membership to happen “quite quickly.” And the White House said that the US would back NATO application for both the countries.
AlarmingConsequence on May 13rd, 2022 at 16:54 UTC »
Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has reported concerns with Finland and Sweden joining NATO because of what he calls terrorist havens, Nordic Kurdish political parties.
Question is origin just aiming for some concessions? Could his objection really stand in the way of the unanimity required for NATO Ascension?
Edit: voice dictation does not work well if I don't know how to pronounce Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
imperial_scholar on May 13rd, 2022 at 16:41 UTC »
This was 100 % expected and it would likely be more concerning if they stayed quiet. The Finnish Defence Force experts are expecting cyberattacks and other indirect forms of disruption, but not a physical response. The agreement with Britain was sought to further ensure that.
nowadayswow on May 13rd, 2022 at 15:51 UTC »
SS:- The Russian statement has described Finland’s move as “ a radical change in the country’s foreign policy. Moscow has asserted that “Finland’s accession to NATO will cause serious damage to the bilateral Russia-Finnish relations and maintain stability in the Northern European region.” Moscow also said that “Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, to neutralize the threats to its national security.