- Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen opposes imposing neutrality on Ukraine
- Valtonen questions Russia’s trustworthiness in adhering to agreements
- Forcing Ukraine to accept terms could undermine international system, Valtonen says
Forcing neutrality onto Ukraine will not bring about a peaceful solution to the crisis with Russia, Finland’s foreign minister said on Monday, adding that Moscow could not be trusted to adhere to any agreement it signs.
[…]
With the prospect of U.S. president elect Donald Trump seeking to end the conflict as quickly possible and concerns from some allies that the terms could be imposed in Kyiv, one scenario could be to force a neutral status on Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly demanded Ukraine remain neutral for there to be peace, which would de facto kill its aspirations for NATO membership.
Russia trust issues
[…] Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen poured cold water on using the “Finlandisation” model, pointing out that firstly Helsinki had fended off Russia in World War 2 and that despite the ensuing peace had always continued to arm itself fearing a new conflict.
“I’m against it (Finlandisation), yes. Let’s face it, Ukraine was neutral before they were attacked by Russia,” Valtonen, whose country has a 1,300-km (810-mile) border with Russia, said on the sidelines of the Paris Peace Forum.
[…]
The Ukraine invasion led both Finland and Sweden to abandon decades of military non-alignment and seek safety in the NATO camp.
Valtonen questioned whether Russia could be trusted even if it agreed a deal and said forcing Ukraine’s hand to accept terms against its will would tear down the international system.
“I really want to avoid a situation where any European country, or the United States for that matter, starts negotiating over the heads of Ukraine,” she said.
“A larger power can not just grab territory, but also essentially weaken the sovereignty of another nation,” she said.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with NATO sharing a border with Russia. NATO is a defense pact. It won’t invade Russia to “stabilise” or for anything else. It’s all right there in the NATO charter.
In fact NATO has shared a border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad for decades. And there haven’t been any problems. More recently, NATO member Finland has a land border of many hundreds of kilometers with Russia’s mainland territory. That doesn’t seem to be hurting anyone or anything, except perhaps Mr. Putin’s ambitions to one day reconquer Finland.
Edit: I forgot the Baltics! How could I forget NATO members Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (since 2004)?
Don’t worry. Everyone does.
Fun fact: The border is essentially unmanned on the Russian side, they moved pretty much everyone to Ukraine. Doesn’t look like they’re expecting to be invaded. You may or may not be interested in what military installations exist up on the Kola peninsula and how many roads and rail lines go south.
Aaah, so maybe Finland could take the opportunity to reverse russia’s salami land grab tactics used in recent past.
Old border fence, suspiciously new post feet. Everybody’s bored on sunday morning anyway, why not?
I believe part of joining NATO was settling those claims and giving up on retaking that territory by force.
No force required, just you know, push those border booths a bit while no ones looking ;)
(But of course, you are most likely right)
Every military pact is a “defense pact”. And no country with “superpower” or “regional power” ambition accepts another power right on its doorsteps.
I think the best historical example of the 20th century is the Cuban missile crisis. NATO-Nukes in Turkey, Warsaw-Pact-Nukes in Cuba. Both sides feeling threatened. The solution was to remove both missile threats.
And Finland now sharing a border with Russia certainly is not going to make them more fine with NATO in Ukraine. That is not how geopolitics work.
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And how would “properly armed” be different to NATO? Putin wants Ukraine to be demilitarized. The options for actual reliable self defense for Ukraine are either NATO membership or a nuclear arsenal.
Nukes are one option. Otherwise giving Ukraine the ability to rebuild its military and arsenal, in particular defensive weapons like Anti-Air and Anti-Missile capabilities.
A Ukraine with nukes is as bad for Russia as a Ukraine in NATO. Russia wants to rule again over “its” (aka Soviet) lost “sphere of influence”. This is textbook imperialism and if that’s what you want to defend here, fine. Just don’t expect me to agree.
Worse for Russia I’d argue. A NATO member state still lays under the pressure of political power of the pact. Ukraine armed with nukes is something that could go south with a future leadership change for the worse. And despite all the propaganda, Russia very well knows that they aren’t actually threatened by NATO - at least for as long as they don’t attack member states, which is where the issue lies. They want Ukraine, that’s why they don’t want them in NATO. Can’t invade and annex them anymore once they’re part of the pact.
…which is why we urgently need to dump the general rule of “frozen conflicts prevent accession into NATO” and change them into tailormade agreements. Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine: so far, Russia has an incentive for frozen conflicts to steer these countries on the course it wants. We should no longer allow this.