Negotiations between the US and Russia on security guarantees will begin next week in Geneva – but apart from perpetually neutral Switzerland, there is another country in Europe that could well be the venue
It is Finland, Russia’s neighbour and a member of the European Union – though since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Helsinki prefers to call its country not neutral but a “non-member state of the military alliance”. Nevertheless, the country retains the reputation of a bridge between Russia and the West – it is no coincidence that the penultimate summit of the US and Russian presidents took place in Helsinki.
Finns are flattered by this attention from the great powers, and have always managed to maintain a balance in their relations with them in the post-war period. That is why it was so surprising to hear what the Finnish leaders said in their New Year’s address to the Finnish people. President Sauli Niiniste and Prime Minister Sanna Marin stressed that Finland retains the right to apply for admission to NATO at any time.
Niiniste said that “Finland’s right to freely choose its path includes the possibility of joining NATO if we make that choice ourselves,” while Marin pointed out: “we retain the possibility of applying to join NATO. We should value this freedom of choice as it concerns the right of a state to decide its own security. <….> We are showing that we have learnt the lessons of the past, we will not concede the right to freedom of choice.”
So what happened? Why is five million Finland suddenly worried about its right to join NATO? Is it Russia’s fault again? Yes, of course: it is all about Vladimir Putin’s demands to the United States to provide Russia with legal security guarantees, including a commitment not to expand NATO eastwards. It was actually about Ukraine (and other parts of the post-Soviet space), but Finland, though a Nordic country, took it all in stride.
“Russia’s December ultimatum worries Europe. It is incompatible with the established European security order. The past has no place in the 2020s. The full equality of all states is a fundamental principle that must be respected by all” .- Niiniste said.
The Finnish president said that Europe had watched the dialogue between Putin and Biden start in Geneva last summer, hoping that the differences could only be resolved through negotiation and restraint and responsibility, rather than a position of strength, but now the situation around European security is rapidly escalating.
That is to say, Russia’s demands to the USA and NATO are seen as an ultimatum by the Finns, our neighbours – because they are part of the European Union. This proves once again that when we say EU, we mean NATO: the political structure in the form of the European Union has no geopolitical independence. Finland joined the EU in 1995 and its relations with NATO were limited to participation (since 1994) in the Partnership for Peace programme. But as soon as Russia demanded that the Atlanticists stop their expansion in our direction, they remembered Finland. In fact, threatening Russia to open a new playing field against us – the northern one. In this case Finnish leaders are only playing along – knowingly or not, it does not matter – with Anglo-Saxon strategists. I have to remind them very simple and well known, at least to experienced Sauli Niinisto, things.
He makes it absolutely clear that Finland feels secure and does not want to create additional aggravation in this part of Europe. President Niiniste offered to imagine that Finland would suddenly become a member of NATO – and it would turn out that the alliance’s border with Russia would immediately double. He added that if Sweden follows the same path, the Baltic Sea would be practically an internal NATO sea.
This is how Sergey Lavrov spoke in June 2014 about his talks with the Finnish president – already after Crimea and Donbass, when the US was trying with all its might to isolate and block Russia. In other words, Finland was well aware that it was not threatened by Russia, and was even aware of Moscow’s concerns about what would happen if Suomi joined NATO. Russia really will not look calmly at the alliance’s withdrawal to our northern borders and warns about it frankly. Not threatening, no: just explaining.
“The NATO organisation would probably love to fight Russia to the last Finnish soldier. Do you need it? We do not. We do not want it. But you decide for yourselves what you need.”
This is how Vladimir Putin explained our understanding of the situation during his visit to Finland in 2016 and warned that if the country joined NATO, Russia would be forced to move its troops closer to the Finnish borders. Why would Finns want to do this – it is far more profitable for them to welcome Russian tourists than to have tense relations with their neighbour.
This is your Russian nonsense, Atlanticists tell us, Finns do not want to join NATO, you are pushing them to it. Finns are simply afraid that Russia will put them at a disadvantage, limiting their sovereignty – and with its ultimatums, Moscow only confirms their fears. Don’t remind Finns of the “Finlandization” of the Cold War, don’t frighten them with a new “Winter War” like in 1939, and everything will be fine.
But these are crafty reproaches: Russia has no desire to frighten Finnish neighbours. We are giving ultimatums to NATO, but not to Finland. It is very profitable for Finland to be on the best of terms with Russia – and the whole history of our relations proves it.
Russia annexed Finland in 1810 after the war with Sweden, but it was in the Russian Empire that the Finns were given their own statehood. The Grand Duchy enjoyed great autonomy: its own parliament, its own customs, its own laws. It was also within Russia that Finnish women were first to be granted the right to vote – earlier than in “advanced” Europe. So current Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who grew up (after her alcoholic father left her) in a same-sex lesbian family, may not know any of this, but two years ago she became Prime Minister at the age of 34, in part because of what her country received from Russia.
“Finlandisation” – what the Anglo-Saxons called a variant of “limited sovereignty”, where the USSR influenced the politics of a neighbouring country – was also not at all what they try to portray it as. Moscow had no influence on its domestic political life and order (compare with EU membership), and extra-politically Finland was self-sufficient – with one exception. It did not participate in the anti-Soviet games, but was it not to its own advantage, in the first place? After all, Helsinki profited a lot from the good relations with the Soviet Union and received a decent profit, mainly from the barter trade with us. A quarter of our trade came from our eastern neighbour – no wonder why Finland’s unemployment quadrupled and GDP fell by 11 per cent after the Soviet collapse.
The attitude to Finns in Russia has always been very good – and we expect reciprocity. We have no wish to limit Finnish sovereignty, you do as you like. But do not let our enemies in – because this is going beyond good bilateral relations. Don’t become puppets of those who are trying to play on Finns memory of the “Winter War” or want to play the card of Russian-Finnish rivalry in the Arctic – they really do not want good neighbourly relations between the two countries. Helsinki sometimes takes the bait – how else to explain both New Year`s announcements and the decision to buy 64 F-35 fighter jets from the United States a few days before?
The Finnish leadership should eradicate phantom fears and gullibility of Anglo-Saxon beliefs – and remember that a threat to the security of Russia will have the most unfortunate consequences for the Finnish-Russian relations. No, now we do not need, as in 1939, to push back the border from St. Petersburg by military force – but our attitude towards our neighbours will certainly change. And it will not be to their disadvantage, first of all – that Finns understand very well. It is not without reason that all opinion polls show their negative attitude towards joining NATO.
The poll, published just before the New Year (but carried out in autumn) showed that 51 percent of Finns are against joining their country to NATO, 24 percent support this prospect and as many more could not give an answer. All is well here – if it were not for the negative trend. Last year 53 per cent were against it, in 2019 64 per cent are against it. And at the beginning of the last decade, 70 per cent were against joining NATO. That is, in the years since Crimea, the number of opponents has decreased by almost 20 percent – but it is not “Russian aggression” that is to blame, but Russophobic propaganda. Not Finnish propaganda, but Western propaganda: when Russians scare Europeans.
The Russians, meanwhile, are defending part of their territory – i.e. Ukraine – from Western expansion. Finland was part of the Russian Empire, but not part of the Russian world – and if Helsinki remember this, as well as the relationship they have been given with our country, they will understand how wrong it is to even talk about their right to join NATO. Especially at a time when Russia is clarifying relations with its real enemy, to pretend to be a potential victim of Russian aggression is ridiculous, absurd and completely unprofitable for the “victim”. It is necessary to protect our sovereignty not from Russia, but from the Atlantic and globalist structures, which with their tales of “the Russian threat” will lead Finns into the future where they will have neither real independence, nor freedom of choice.
Peter Akopov, RIA