The Finns are watching the situation in Ukraine very carefully. And for good reason, it is the European country with the largest land border with Russia (1,300 km). And despite a meeting Between the head of American diplomacy and his Russian counterpart in Geneva, Friday January 21, a Russian attack is possible “at any time“, according to Washington.
This does not fail to worry Finland, where the The debate on possible NATO membership has now been revived, as the director for advanced studies at the University of Helsinki explains: “Of course it’s a game-changer! The media, for example, use it to make headlines, Explain Tuomas Forsberg, andAnd then the politicians who are in favor of Finnish membership of NATO take every opportunity to say that it is time, that it is already almost too late.”
According to the researcher, more and more Finns are in favor of it, even if they remain a minority. They are around 30% at the moment. “The real change is for those who are opposed. For the first time, they are less than 50%”, asserts Tuomas Forsberg.
In Finland, we still cannot digest the Russian will to stop the enlargement of the Atlantic alliance. In the streets of Helsinki, it is now common to hear residents expressing a certain distrust of Russia. “Personally, I am in favor of Finland joining NATO, says a resident, as a response to pressure from Russia to show them that they have nothing to impose on us here in Finland!”
Beyond this question on NATO, the military threat on the Finnish border is now addressed. “I don’t think there is a real threat at the moment but it is a possibility. If someone makes a mistake, it can happen very quickly,” says a Finn. “I really hope it doesn’t happen and I think deep in my heart that it won’t,” tempers a resident of Helsinki before adding: “But if you look at the history of Finland and Russia. And truth be told, history in general, you never know.“
On this subject, the Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, recently recalled that Finland, a former Russian province, had “learned from the past”. Way to say that his country has not forgotten the two wars that have opposed it to the Soviet Union since its independence in 1917.