There currently is no military threat to Finland from Russia. Finnish ambassador to the UN Klaus Korhonen admitted as much in an interview with CNN yesterday. He said that the Finnish decision to join NATO is the result of a “very drastic change in our security environment” after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a formulation frequently used by the U.S. and U.K. governments, along with their NATO allies, to describe the alleged effects of “Russian aggression” in Ukraine. Korhonen frankly admitted, however, that currently there are no “direct military threats against Finland,” by Russia, adding that they don’t see any “irregular activity.”
The integration of Finland in NATO’s military structures, however, will not be seen the same way by Russia. Stars & Stripes reports that U.S. troops have carried out periodic training events in Finland, and with full-fledged Finnish membership in NATO, those opportunities to carry out joint missions are expected to expand. Finland’s modernized military also would bring significant assets to NATO’s northeastern flank along the 800-mile border Finland shares with Russia. With Finnish membership in NATO, St. Petersburg will potentially be threatened from two directions—from NATO member Estonia in the southwest, and from Finland to the northwest. NATO maritime forces operating in the Gulf of Finland will be protected from both flanks.
Russia can only respond by beefing up its forces in the Kaliningrad region. “There will emerge a tremendous imbalance, and correcting it will be possible only by the concentrated deployment of weapons armed with nuclear warheads,” Dmitry Suslov, the deputy director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies of the Higher School of Economics, told TASS.
“Apparently, it is already hard to speak about a nuclear-free status of the Baltic Region,” agrees the director of the Russian International Affairs Council Andrey Kortunov. Russia’s greater military activity in the region in any case will be the minimum “that apparently will have to be expected regardless of the modalities of Finland’s accession to NATO,” he warned.
