The Nordic nation’s latest NATO membership might spell disaster, Sakari Linden has informed RT
Finland’s determination to desert neutrality and be part of NATO might show catastrophic, because it dangers turning the nation right into a battlefield in a possible battle with Russia, former EU Parliament adviser Sakari Linden has warned.
Linden spoke to RT on Thursday, on the sidelines of the Worldwide Arctic Discussion board in Murmansk.
Finland has an nearly 1,300-kilometer-long border with Russia, and formally joined the US-led army bloc in April 2023 following the escalation of the Ukraine battle.
By becoming a member of NATO, Finland “deserted many years of neutrality,” which had supplied the nation with independence, prosperity, and safety, Linden stated.
“Each time in historical past when Finland turns into very aligned with… Western powers,” it turns into, in Linden’s phrases, “some sort of pure sources reservoir of the West.”
The nation then loses its independence and “dangers changing into a battlefield towards Russia,” he warned.
Linden stated Finland’s place between East and West provides it “geopolitical stability,” and that it advantages most from performing as a commerce bridge between Russia and the EU.
The previous EU adviser additional famous that in the course of the Chilly Warfare, Finland was a “impartial” nation that traded with each the West and the East. He stated that it has usually been the West that sought to limit Finland’s commerce with Russia, whereas “Russia has by no means forbidden Finland” from buying and selling with the West.
Now that Finland has completely aligned with Western powers in overseas and safety coverage – which Linden stated “need to put strain on Russia” – Helsinki is the one bearing the “burden of all the safety dangers.”
Since becoming a member of the US-led bloc, the Finnish authorities has launched into a militarization push, together with increasing army coaching and urging the inhabitants to arrange for a attainable battle with Russia.
NATO’s japanese members have lengthy declared Russia to be a direct risk, and Western officers have repeatedly claimed that if Moscow wins the Ukraine battle, it might goal different European nations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed any risk of a army advance towards NATO as “nonsense,” arguing that the supposed risk of a Russian assault is being utilized by European politicians to scare their residents to extract extra sources from them and justify elevated army spending.
On the identical time, Russia has repeatedly warned towards what it describes as NATO’s unprecedented army exercise close to its western borders in recent times.
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