Didn't Russia (last month) threaten Finland/Sweden with 'consequences' should they decide joining NATO? Wondering what would those be. Putting both countries in a new list of 'very unfriendly countries'?
Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
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Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#22Has Finland significant pro-Russian politicians? Or at least pro before February 2022? I visited there a while ago and there was a feel of Russian friendliness at the least with significant independence on the streets. But that's just my feelings and I wasn't paying attention back then.
This article (in Finnish) shows which Finnish MPs are against joining NATO. That's not implying they are pro- current Russian government. https://www.hs.fi/politiikka/art-2000008684257.html
For readers not versed in Finnish politics, the only party with a majority opposed is Vasemmistoliitto (Left Alliance), the rebranded former Finnish Communist/Socialist party.
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#23Title is not quite right, this seems to be the President and Prime Minister recommending to the parliament that Finland should join NATO. The final decision is not made.
This is basically THE signal to start of the process. Given the majority popular support (76% !!!) and this statement from the political leadership it would be extremely unlikely parliament would not follow through.
Before this was made public there might have very well been some secret discussions, and the President and Prime minister might have very well used this statement to signal "please wait". This is as green light as green gets.
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#24Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#25Didn't Russia (last month) threaten Finland/Sweden with 'consequences' should they decide joining NATO? Wondering what would those be. Putting both countries in a new list of 'very unfriendly countries'?
Worse! The enemy list. But what are they going to do, is what I want to know. Baltic sea will soon be pretty much closed for them and they sure could start WW3 over that but would they? They don't seem to have that in them.
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#26Didn't Russia (last month) threaten Finland/Sweden with 'consequences' should they decide joining NATO? Wondering what would those be. Putting both countries in a new list of 'very unfriendly countries'?
> Putting both countries in a new list of 'very unfriendly countries'?
My best guess would be exactly that. The last thing Putin wants is a repeat of the Finno-Russian wars of 1917 and 1941, which resulted in catastrophic losses on the Soviet side.
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#27Has Finland significant pro-Russian politicians? Or at least pro before February 2022? I visited there a while ago and there was a feel of Russian friendliness at the least with significant independence on the streets. But that's just my feelings and I wasn't paying attention back then.
Maybe it was just friendliness towards Russian people? This war is entirely political. Most Russians don't seem to want to invade other countries.
> Most Russians don't seem to want to invade other countries.
What are you basing this on?
https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/
This seems to show strong support for the Russian government and this analysis seems to suggest that few Russians are concerned about Russians crimes and as many as half are very supportive of horrific violence against people they see as nonhuman.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2022.2...
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#28There was some discussion on plausible NATO membership of Finland and Sweden. At that point the disucssion was based on guestimates from media. But now it's official. This is not the NATO membership application, but a statement from the political leadership in Finland that they support and suggest parliament proceeds with the application process with maximum urgency. The President and Prime Minister of Finland have p…
Putin's pan to not let NATO on Russian borders worked out great.
NATO has been on Russian borders for almost 2 decades (and way longer if you include Norway, but that border is arguably too remote to really count). So what plan, exactly?
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#29Has Finland significant pro-Russian politicians? Or at least pro before February 2022? I visited there a while ago and there was a feel of Russian friendliness at the least with significant independence on the streets. But that's just my feelings and I wasn't paying attention back then.
The Finnish political system was infiltrated by Russian assets (willing or just useful fools) for decades [0]. Luckily this has abated in the last decades. The people have deep suspicion of the Russian state but no particular animosity towards russian people in general. Most finns, especially the young generations, feel most affinity towards west in every sense. The Finnish language is Finno-Ugric and unrelated to sl…
>Most finns, especially the young generations, feel most affinity towards west in every sense.
It's true that most finns feel affinity towards the west, but same can't be said about the USA. Especially the younger generation sees both Russia and US with somewhat strong dislike.
Re: Finland will seek NATO membership immediately
#30This makes the formal application next week a foregone conclusion. But, it already was.
Perhaps more interesting is that it makes the swedish application almost inevitable as well, and it might happen at the same time.