NATO nuclear weapons could potentially be placed on Russia’s border with Finland if Helsinki joins the Western military alliance, Newsweek reported on Wednesday, citing a Finnish newspaper.
The newspaper Iltalehti reported that the bill the Finnish government will put before the country’s parliament on joining NATO doesn’t include any opt-outs for hosting nuclear weapons.
Finnish military sources told the paper that Finland’s foreign minister and defense minister committed to NATO back in July that they wouldn’t seek “restrictions or national reservations” if their application to join the alliance is accepted. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said earlier this month that Finland had “no preconditions” for joining NATO.
While Finland may be willing to host nuclear weapons, it’s unlikely they would be placed in the country after it joins NATO, at least in the near future. Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has previously said the alliance has expressed no interest in placing nuclear warheads in Finland.
Currently, the alliance keeps no nuclear warheads in countries that joined NATO after the end of the Cold War, although Poland recently said it’s had discussions with the US on hosting the weapons.
Placing nuclear weapons in Finland, which shares an over 800-mile border with Russia, would be a major provocation toward Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he doesn’t view Sweden and Finland joining NATO as a threat but said he will respond to the expansion of NATO military infrastructure in the region.
Finland and Sweden’s NATO memberships have been ratified by 28 out of 30 alliance members, with only Hungary and Turkey to go. Turkey has threatened to block the Nordic nations from joining if they don’t live up to sign a memorandum signed back in June, but Ankara’s issues seem to be mainly with Sweden, and the new Swedish government has said it’s ready to fulfill the deal.
Helsinki will become a radioactive no go zone before they can join NATO!
That seems a tad aggressive. I am no friend of Russia but do accept we shouldn’t make them too nervous.
Just being on the side most likely to have final say is smarter than other way round. So many chickens for the grinder to off to scare the monkey!!!!!
Precisely
It is hard to believe we are living in 2022……………….. And this is the best that we can do? We should have reached a point by now, seriously, that these kinds of weapons would be extinct. It baffles the mind. There seems to be a missing link in our EVOLUTION. Finland and Sweden?! Holy cow….
I wonder if Helsinki will become the first European city to suffer the atomic bomb…
Real smart. That puts that country in the list to get the mushroom cloud. Wow.
As putin explained, this is a legitimate extreme threat and Russia has shown it takes extreme measures against this type of threats. Why not put that clause in, u can always take it out. Not very smart of dancing pm.
Now is the best time for them to get into nato but this wasn’t smart.
That there is no clause does not mean that NATO will place nukes in Finland – only that the Finns do not have an exclusion clause. NATO has specifically expressed no interest in placing any there.
It becomes a bargaining chip.
If I was the Russians I would not give up anything to obtain this goal – but then Putin might just to seem like he is successful, but really as NATO has not expressed desires to put nukes in Finland and it would only make NATO less safe I could not see the Russian people see this as a victory – still Putin might think so, so I guess you could be right.
Continued poking of the Russian bear will not end well.When Russias national interests are concerned even Putins critics and there are many will shut up and toe the line against the Imperialists and war lovers in the US and around the world. Be careful about what you want it might happen.If Americas borders were threatened how would our Military respond.
The US started this crap back in 2014 when they overturned a legitimate election. Certainly not for the first time.Is it not time for the US power brokers to mind their own business and fix everything wrong here in the US? That would involve a massive change in the allocation of resources not related to war profits but directed to social welfare and the real interests of the populace.I am not holding my breath.
Dream on…………
So, the Finish government wants nuclear weapons on their border with Russia. That makes Finland a target. Pretty dumb.
Obviously, the people of Finland are not well served by having a dumb government. IMO, they should rid themselves of their present government as fast as possible and get a government that is less dumb.
The people probably don’t know.
Yes. Like all countries, governments give them the mushroom treatment: kept in the dark and fed a diet of bull shit.
Damn good analogy.
They probably are just saying that. Because it makes them target No.2 if they go through with it. This is a bad time for the NATO Gnomes to go stupid, so much so that I bet they have some deal with the Russians. Otherwise should that flock of geese take a wrong turn, Helsinki could join Nagasaki & Hiroshemia as a testing place for nuclear diplomacy…
Finnish military sources told the paper that Finland’s foreign minister and defense minister committed to NATO back in July that they wouldn’t seek “restrictions or national reservations” if their application to join the alliance is accepted. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said earlier this month that Finland had “no preconditions” for joining NATO.
The bribe must have been substantial.
No the desire to join is very sincere and deepfelt in the Finish electorate and thus they did not want to have their acceptance held up by conditions they had made which some other NATO country could object to.
I’d reply but I don’t want to have my commented dissected like a frog in a biology class.
😂
He does that a LOT, doesn’t he!
It’s not that complicated.
When Russia looked like a significant conventional military threat, the Finnish regime didn’t think it was worth getting being part of the NATO anvil to Russia’s hammer.
Now that the Russian regime has accidentally outed its conventional forces as a threat on par with, say, the Princely Lichtenstein Security Corps, all that’s left is the nuclear threat, which would be a problem whether Finland openly takes all that NATO money or not. So it might as well take the money.
I believe you are just flat out wrong the Finns I know were and are deeply concerned that Russia would actually attack a country like Ukraine – they had the neutral policy not (only) because they feared a conventional Russian attack, but also very much because they firmly believed that like they could with the Soviets they could live in peace with Putin.
The idea that they could actually trust Putin like they did the Soviet leaders went out the window with the SMO – and AFAIK the dramatic shift in the public view on joining NATO happened primarily in February/March – so before the Russians had been shown up as a fairly poorly prepared nation.
I cannot stress enough that the Finnish experience of the winter war has taught them to refrain from judging the Russians too early in any war – moreover they know that they have to live with the Russians as neighbors even after a peace eventually has been concluded.
For this reason I think that people from around the globe too easily assign motives to the Finns that are IMO not compatible with how the Finns actually reason or act – if you were correct they should have asked for NATO membership in 1991/2, when Russia was utterly down – they did not I suspect because they actually though they could live in peace with the post Soviet regime.
Does NATO actually hand out money??? From our experience it only has requests for us to spend a set amount of our GDP on defense – I’d be really interested to hear if we can actually be paid!
SOME people make money, careers. Finland is in the same boat as most European countries. Not serious leadership, ffinsncisl system intertwined with European, and in danger of collapsing industry. Getting into NATO for both Finland and Sweden is an economic insurance program, Getting foreign military brings jobs through services, some people profit. And it is insurance against internal unrest in rapidly weakening economy.
It has a lots fo with many issues — Russia fades in comparison.
By Russian standards almost everyone in Finland are in a better situation, and the ‘money’ is spread much more evenly around in Finland than in Russia – but do not let that disturb you!
The leadership in Finland, Norway and Denmark are both serious and more importantly in tune with what the electorates want – they are in financial difficulties brought on by corona and the international conditions, not one of them is in trouble because of their own policies.
You clearly do not know what being in NATO entails – there is e.g. no foreign military permanently stationed in Denmark and not NATO contracts payed for by NATO in Denmark and I kind of doubt that it is any different for e.g. Norway. NATO does not provide any assurance against domestic unrest – unlike the Warsaw pact NATO has not once provided support for a government facing domestic unrest.
Care to flesh out this rather remarkable assertion – as it stands there is only an assertion and no actual argument that it is true.
They must think they will get the territory back they lost from Russia after WWII after WWIII? All governments have lost reason today, haven’t they? https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=finland+loses+territory+after+ww+ii&ia=web
This is a dangerous narrative. It has bern hammered into our skulls that Russia is tragicommicalky weak and thus has only one card left — nuclear.
What has been outed? Where? In CNN one-liners? Where is the evidence of this remarkable Ukrainian success.
For all who care to pay attention it is clesr that Russia’s approach is methodical, and in regions with majority Russian population, Ukrainian forces were reckless, so variety of mostly artillery tactics were employed,
However, as no peace initiative was on a horizon, Russia moved to next level — incorprating the territories. Now it has to consolidate. bring in newly mobilized to support the regions defences, to free up the
military. That is all that happened.
What halpens next is up to NATO (fiction that Ukraine decides can be dispensed)
and either a call for talks, or escallation.
NATO protesteth too much. Weak Russia will use nukes! In Ukraine? If Russia ever used nukes it will be against installations in Europe and against US, Nuclear war is an existential war and using it on Ukraine? What for? Russia has not yet used any of its other strategic wespons in Ukraine, as those are of no use in such limited theaters of war.
It looks like it is NATO that is frustrated, and the revelation of dirty bomb fits the media narrrative already prepared, The flurry ofcSecDefs of US, UK, France and Turkey was not for nothing. It was USvSecDef that called Russian counterpart. The readout sfterwards — besides obligatory we support Ukraine — was the need to keep communications open. Russia provided details. CIA boss promptly flew to Kiev,
However, the outright wrong assumptions that Russian economy was going to collapse flowing West “”nuclear” option to set a fuse.
In the nutshell, European economies are cratering, and according to IMF, Russian is growing.
Time was meant to be on NATO side, now it is not. The series of high profile sabotage acts are a proof of which side is desparate to notch a “win”.
False claim of dirty bomb? It looks like evidence is specific as to where the nuclear matter would come from, how will it be delivered. False? IAEA may need to investigate.
Time to talk. It is NATO responsilility to take
that step. What are they waiting for?
I think someone sprayed an awful lot of The Stupid in aerosol form all over Europe.
Why would Finland agree to have nukes? They are aware of what the Ukraine operation is not about conquest.
They haven’t agreed. They’re just staying on script. Vague warnings of terrible consequences if …., and even more foggy rhetoric re this entire proxy fiasco.
They were not asked so they have not agreed, what they have done is to pass a bill that is without opt outs for the potential future stationing of nukes. NATO will not station nukes in Finland – the flight time to vital Russian sites is so short that doing this would almost certainly lead to nuclear war by accident – that is not in NATO’s interest.
Maybe they want the territory back they lost after WWII? https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=finland+loses+territory+after+ww+ii&ia=web
Golly, the stupidity and insanity is world wide now.
This is so absurd. Does Finland have a map? Do they know how to google?Saint Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia and a most likely recipient of a US super nuke, is practically in the middle of Finland. Might as well Finland detonate the nuke in the middle of their own country themselves.
—————“U.S. Super Nuke?”———
One of us very ilinformed is it you? Is it me? I have never heard of an American super nuke, but I have read of Russian super nukes lately. I have read of American mini nuke, and modernization, original was a $1 trillion appropiation, later uped to $1.5 or was it $1,6 trillion under our Nobel Peace prize winner president.
I have read of a Russian nuclear hyper stealth 100 Megaton surely a “Super Nuke” at 40 some percent greater yeild than the the largest nuke ever detonated back in the 60s which was of Course, Russian too, not American. The latest news of Russian “Super Nukes” I have seen of their deployed “Super Stealth” 200 megaton nucleat powered torpedo. But if it’s my iinfo that is out of date maybe you could point me to some or ANY news of a American “Super Nuke”.. I will be anxiously in wait!
Haha, I pulled “super” out of my a$$. I was being melodramatic. Did I ever pretend to be an expert at anything?
No one ever expects all of us 2B experts. But mentioning American “Super Nuke” tends 2 turn deterrence on its head. It’s really the U.S. that is in the wrong, far as deterrence goes. Russia has not only the super nukes, but is and now the leader and has been since the 70s… The U.S., not so Much.
Damned idiots …
Finland, according to these sources has an acute problem with alcoholism and consumption. (Note: Not all Finns have this problem, so don’t get me wrong, I’m not applying it to all Finns.) Maybe, that’s a reason their gov. is selling them out? too much partying numbs them down as to what Helsinki has planned for the population?
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=finland%27s+alcohol+problem&ia=web
Finland Willing To Be De-Militarized By Russia