Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s declaration that Russia cannot dictate her country’s foreign policy drew a new threat from Russia, which has attempted to justify its invasion of Ukraine with complaints about the trans-Atlantic alliance.
“Finland’s accession to NATO would have serious military and political repercussions,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Friday.
Finland maintained formal neutrality throughout the Cold War, as part of a deal signed with the Soviet Union after fending off Red Army forces in the bloody Winter War, but the northern European nation began a “cooperation” program with NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Marin has said Finland is “very unlikely” to seek full membership in the alliance, but she emphasized this week that Russia has no say in the matter.
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“No acute discussions are currently underway about the possibility of Finland applying to NATO,” Marin told reporters. “We’ll make our decisions from our own national starting points. … Russia’s actions have no effect on these decisions.”
Zakharova countered that Finland’s aloofness from the alliance is “an important factor of ensuring security” on the continent.
“We are viewing the course taken by Finland’s leadership to continue the policy of military non-alignment as an important factor of ensuring security in northern Europe, in the European continent in general,” she said, per state media, before complaining about “practical interaction” between the trans-Atlantic security bloc and the Nordic state.
Western officials interpreted her warning as another sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression might not stop with Ukraine.
“No illusions possible about Putin’s will to dominate Europe well beyond the former borders of the Soviet Union,” Germany’s Reinhard Butikofer, a senior member of the European Parliament, wrote on Twitter.
State Department spokesman Ned Price offered a similar interpretation.
“Every country should be free to determine its own policies — its own domestic policy, its own foreign policies, its partnerships, its alliances, its associations, its aspirations,” Price told reporters during a Friday press briefing. “That is what Putin has sought to trample on in Ukraine. It is what — if we are to listen to, at least, this bluster — we may be led to believe he wants to trample on beyond Ukraine.”
Price emphasized that he has “no doubt” that Putin understands that an attack on a NATO ally would provoke the United States to “fight for every inch of NATO territory.” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced Friday that the security bloc is deploying “the NATO Response Force for the first time in a collective defense context” after Central and Eastern European allies expressed their alarm that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine increased the threat posed to their own territories.
About 40 American troops already have arrived in Latvia, where they were welcomed by Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks.
“We are ready to do whatever is needed to defend ourselves. We are not afraid to die for that. But we might be overwhelmed, so this is very much why we welcome you here,” Pabriks told the American contingent. “We are not afraid that somebody might invade us, but the signal that U.S. soldiers are with us, and that other allies, from Canadians to Europeans are with us, is a good signal to Putin — don’t mess with us.”
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Finland does not have that layer of security, but officials in Helsinki expressed “confidence” in their own military.
“The Finnish Defense Forces has good readiness to fulfill the responsibilities belonging to it,” Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen said. “Finns can have confidence in our defense forces.”
