Russia itself has pushed Finland to join NATO, - President Niiniste
Finnish President Sauli Niiniste has said that the country's possible accession to NATO will not pose a threat to Russia, and the Kremlin must understand that they themselves pushed Helsinki to such a decision after decades of neutrality.
As reported by Censor.NET with reference to EP.
"We are thinking about how to protect our country. If we want to take care of maximum security, it means maximizing our defense. No one can be harmed by the fact that someone wants to protect themselves. In my opinion, everything is simple in this matter: we add to our own security, but we do not take anything from anyone," he said.
Niiniste also sharply commented on Russia's possible outrage over Finland's decision to apply for NATO membership.
"Russia has long said that the non-alignment of Finland and Sweden contributes to stability in the Baltic Sea, but at the end of last year they said that Finland and Sweden could not join NATO. And that changed the situation. Sweden and I were non-aligned of our own choosing. But with such statements the Russian Federation tried to declare that we can't solve something ourselves. This is a big change, it made us think," said Niinisto.
He added that February 24 finally changed the picture, because it became clear that Russia can just attack its neighbor.
"So if you ask how Russia will view Finland's accession to NATO… If that happened, I would say that they pushed for it themselves. Let them look in the mirror," he said.
