On Wednesday, Russia said it would respond to Finland’s move to allow the US access to military bases inside the Nordic nation, which joined NATO last year and shares an over 800-mile border with Russia.
Under a new Defense Cooperation Agreement that was ratified by Finland’s parliament on Monday, the US can access 15 bases in Finland, including a border guard base only 20 miles from the Russian border.
“I can only confirm that Russia will not leave unanswered the NATO military buildup on our border, which threatens the security of the Russian Federation,” said Andrei Nastasin, a deputy spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.
“We will also take the necessary measures, including of a military-technical nature, to counter aggressive decisions by Finland, as well as its NATO allies,” Nastasin added.
After Finland first applied to join NATO in 2022, Russia vowed to increase its military presence in western Russia and near the Finnish border in response to any buildup of NATO military infrastructure in the Nordic nation.
Sweden also officially joined NATO this year, making all Nordic nations members of the US-led military alliance. The US also signed a DCA with Stockholm that gives it access to 17 bases inside Sweden.
Isnt chess using humans and nature as cannon fodder wonderful? This is how they trim the hedges, mow the lawn in the established rules order…
“I can only confirm that Russia will not leave unanswered the NATO military buildup on our border, which threatens the security of the Russian Federation,” said Andrei Nastasin, a deputy spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.
March 28, 2022. President Zelensky publicly declares that Ukraine is ready for neutrality combined with security guarantees as part of a peace agreement with Russia. “Security guarantees and neutrality, the non-nuclear status of our state — we’re ready to do that. That’s the most important point … they started the war because of it.”
And Zelensky agreed. At least before he was told not to agree.
“And Zelensky agreed. At least until Lavrov announced that Russia had rejected the draft agreement because Zelensky wouldn’t give Moscow absolute veto power over all Ukrainian military activities.”
Fixed, no charge.
You didn't fix shit because you're ignorant as to how negotiations work. I have no doubt Lavrov rejected the draft proposal but only because Zelensky backed out on what his negotiators had agreed with when they initialed that draft. And before you say that's how "negotiations work", I'll correct you once again and say, no that isn't how they work. Any issue of that importance was discussed thoroughly BEFORE the negotiators even went to the table and they were given parameters on what was acceptable and what wasn't. That how negotiations work. Lavrov wouldn't have rejected an initialed draft otherwise. But, that's really beside the point. Zelensky DID agree Russia had security issues and that's why I put those words in bold type. And even if you are correct, which you aren't, the negotiations were halted because Zelensky was told to halt them.
You beat me to it. You have the details too.
You can fantasize all you like about how negotiations work.
In the real world, principals reject what their negotiators bring back all the time.
Can you put up some proof of what you say?
Sure they do. But when negotiations get to the point that there is an initialed draft that means that issues of importance have been ironed out to a point that both sides are at least in the same ballpark. Lavrov's reaction to Zelensky's "amendment", as you call it, obviously went beyond anything that was agreed upon at the negotiating table. And, like I said, my original comment was about Zelensky agreeing that Russia had security issues. But I guess you were bored and wanted to start up with this again.
But the American principals don't have principles. Signatures, initials or their word of honor are nothing to them.
THEY CAN'T BE TRUSTED, THEY ARE PEOPLE WITH ABSOLUTELY NO HONOR.
More likely Zelensky was made to put a blocker in the already approved agreement, like they do in congress here when they want to kill a bill they don't like.
There was no "already approved agreement."
There was a draft agreed to by negotiators and sent back to principals (Zelenskyy and Putin).
Zelenskyy wanted the draft amended to require a majority of guarantor states to approve Ukrainian military exercises, etc. instead of Russia having an absolute veto.
Putin (or at least Lavrov, who publicly announced Russia's rejection) rejected that amendment, but stated a willingness to continue negotiating.
Then Johnson arrived in Kyiv and suddenly the Ukrainians were no longer willing to continue negotiations.
How do you know this? Sources please.
I've posted the press conference video of Lavrov publicly rejecting the draft agreement and explaining why numerous times already. Educating those who pretend they haven't already been educated isn't a job I accept.
Putin showed the initialed agreement document. And no one in Washington and Kiev denied it. We do know that our politicians are liars, they invaded Iraq based on lies.
Lavrov told the truth, he is a superb diplomat. He has never been accused of lying.
It was initialed and approved to be finalized, and Boris Johnson came all the way from London to stop it. So Zelensky wanted to amend the agreed draft , the normal way to block any agreement in congress.
The whole world knows that.
It was initialed by negotiators who had no power to finalize it, and Zelenskyy demanded changes.
The changes were publicly rejected by Lavrov the day before Johnson arrived.
Those are facts. You can stomp your feet all day long and they won’t stop being facts.
Were the changes demanded by Zelenskyy poison pills intended to stop the agreement from being acceptable to the Russians? I suspect that some of them were. Lavrov alluded to changes in negotiated ceasefire lines, which could well have been fatal. On the other hand, there was no way Zelenskyy was going to agree to giving Russia absolute unilateral veto power over all Ukrainian military affairs — THAT one was obviously a Russian poison pill in the negotiator-initialed draft.
Thomas, you work hard to make up excuses for war criminals. Ukraine had lost the war before it started, they had a good deal going, the ""Minsk agreement"", a fair and square done deal. Now you try to excuse the simple stupidity and total moral collapse of the neocons in Washington to annihilate a nation, the killing of hundreds of thousands of young men just because Biden wants a regime change, Putin must go, he said and the breakup of the RF is needed.
There never was a real chance for Ukrainians to win a war against Russia, and the American cowards did not dare to supply American young men for the meatgrinder.
IT IS BIDEN'S WAR, HE IS A KILLER , A WAR CRIMINAL AND HE HAS TO GO.
This was a totally avoidable war, open your eyes and have the courage to see the truth. Why do they go on sacrificing the young men, hunting them down in the streets to send them to be slaughtered. How can you justify that with good conscience?
Russia is a two continent nation, at no time did the RF threaten the USA on another continent, and at no time did they threaten any nation on the European continent, not even the UKRAINE, the Minsk agreement is proof. China and Russia are allies now.
The members of the US government are not honorable people by my standards. They are evil people.
Don't blame Zelensky, he is paid to follow orders, and he did just that and still does until he gets killed.
Lavrov did not allude, he spoke factually and the Boris arrival in Kiev confirmed what he said. He and Putin don't tell lies. Biden is a liar.
Noticing that they're all war criminals isn't making excuses for them.
Pretending some of them aren’t war criuminals, however, might be.
Please stop your obfuscating, I know you know better.
You're right. I do know better.
The question is whether you really don't know better, or are just pretending to not know better.
If you really, truly think Putin isn't exactly as much of a war criminal as Biden, that thing you're doing that you think is thinking isn't.
Thomas, please provide the evidence of Putin’s war crimes. You want it to be true that Putin is a war criminal. Please produce the real evidence. Are Netanyahu, Biden and cabinet members in Tel Aviv and Washington war criminals? Do occupied Palestinian people have a right of self defense and human rights in Gaza as well as on the WB?
You see the evidence of Putin’s war crimes daily and have for 25 years, if you’re willing to look. If you’re not willing to look, me providing the evidence for the 3,000th time won’t convince you to look.
Yes, Netanyahu, Biden, et al. are war criminals, just like Putin.
Yes, Palestinian people have a right of self-defense and human rights. But we’ve discussed that before. Your tap-dancing around Hamas being EXACTLY the same as the IDF doesn’t change the fact that Hamas is EXACTLY the same as the IDF.
You do know what is happening in Gaza and on the WB? Hamas is not the same as the IDF. You are in denial, you can’t take it.
Do the Palestinians have human rights such as there are?
Thomas, allegations are not enough, you know it.
Russia has the advantages in the Nordic region…!
What is in it for the people in Finland and Sweden? How did they sell their people to give up their trusted neutrality?
Who is behind that, who profits?
My guess is that the leaders of these countries who make these decisions are bought off or bribed by the U.S. That's the only possible explanation I can come up with for why these leaders make such stupid decisions.
I think the trust in neo-liberal economics makes it possible. In the West manipulated social democracies have succumbed to the power of money.
Well they are now oversees territories of the US empire. They assume to have a sugar daddy now to take care of them if ever they get themselves in trouble. On some level they must by now realize this is precisely what they did, so – this is logical to them – the move was retroactively justified. From now on if they just listen and behave nicely they won't have a care in the world. Well, they did that already so not much of a sacrifice there.
Of course people do not get a say in any of this, but I do not know of any reason whatsoever to expect them to buy into that reassuring idea to an ever so slightly lesser extent than their leadership. Anything else would be wrongthink. So I don't think there is anything particularly nefariously conspiratorial to this, it is just that the delusion is too enticing, and they convinced themselves this is their ticket to ignore reality, keep the honey flowing no sorrow in sight, as they are used to while the world is changing. It will be a crude awakening.
You mean the delusion of capitalism pure?
And so much for democracy, in the USA democracy started to dye decades ago, it is now a farce. A Trump or Biden would not have been possible in a functioning democracy, MHO.
Neo-liberal economics and Democracy can't go well together.
I thought it was pretty well understood that if democracy meant ordinary people had any influence on important decisions prisons would overflow with democrats.
All Western political systems, the US different only in excelling in exces, are based on extremely rich special interest groups able to simply buy up desired policies, preventively excise possible threats to those policies and also manipulate public opinion in favor of desired policies. For not only the executive and legislative branch are theirs to do with as they please, the media is theirs too. Democracy is not about counting votes, it's about counting money. It is what it is.
You said it. They pulled off the biggest sale when they made people believe they will all be millionaires, all they had to do is work hard for a paycheck and they will be rich.
As far as I know there has never been in the history of man, and this would include the archeological record since the dawn of our genus, ever been an instance of a single person who became wealthy from working hard. That is not the way to become rich in any system our species has ever tried.
You said it, it is so true.
But people in capitalistic democratic societies believe that it is true, they can become very rich with hard work and only they have real freedom and that is how their people are richer than they are because the rich worked harder for a living.
They didn't people changed their minds on how secure neutrality made them when Putin decided to invade Ukraine – which was neither in NATO nor on a path to NATO membership.
Simply put Putin is the best NATO recruiter there's been since Stalin. Neither Finland nor Sweden ever thought they needed to join before the SMO.
FYI Ukraine was a de facto NATO MEMBER immediately after the bloody Obama/Biden regime change and the Ukrainian civil war started. The Ukrainian military was trained and armed to NATO standards, they had military exercises inside Ukraine with NATO troops. NATO was in Ukraine on a rotating basis because legally they were not allowed permanent bases inside Ukraine. 10 exercises had been scheduled for 2022, the Army Times reported.
Simply put, Biden and Trump are the best to make enemies out of allies. The German people know who sabotaged the NS2, BREAKING THE BACK OF THE German and EU ECONOMY.
The Swedish and Finish elite sold their nation just as the continental Democracies did. Keep believing your propaganda. Ukraine was not neutral, it is a de facto NATO member. Sweden and Finland were de jure neutral nations and were not threatened by Russia at all.
Oh so that is why we were at war with Russia already in 2014!? Oh no that's right we were not and we continued to buy oil and gas from them.
So that's why they had Himars, patriots and F16's already in 2022 – oh no that's also not the case .
So they were given some light equipment and some training nothing like on the scale of what is being done now, and no offensive weapons.
But yes they held some exercises in western Ukraine with up to 2000 participating NATO troops – that is not equivalent to NATO membership de facto or otherwise.
That was a threat to Russia how?
Which is why EU kept supporting Ukraine even when the US had a pause on deliveries for 6 months this winter!?
No there is a fairly broad consensus in EU that the threat is from Putin and Russia – EU economy was not broken by the end of Russian gas, gas prices are now as low as in 2021.
EU economy is in trouble because of demographics primarily – as is that of Russia and many other countries.
No in the case of Sweden they reluctantly followed the opinion polls and in the case of Finland they did so with less reluctance.
The polls which never before had had majority for joining NATO did so only after the start of the SMO – the elites did not sell out anyone and there is no grass roots movement of any significance to leave NATO.
You appear to believe that having some western defensive weapons and a very limited amount of troops trained along NATO lines is the same as NATO membership – it is not!
No NATO member has been invaded since becoming a NATO member.
Sweden and Finland joined because Putin's SMO proved to their populations that they were no longer safe just by being neutral – and their populations never felt that threatened by the Soviet Union!
YOU ARE VERY NAIVE.
You are very ill informed about what constitutes NATO membership and what was delivered before 2022 not to mention public opinion in Sweden and Finland.
All things you can find via Google.
You are not informed enough to know what you talk about.
I don't need google, I lived in Europe for many years.
Americans don't understand that words of honor, signatures and initials mean something. You don't break your word or written promise you vouched for with your honor and integrity.
“Americans don’t understand that words of honor, signatures and initials mean something.”
Agreed, nor do Putin though.
President Putin is a rational head of state, a great leader and statesman. He does not break national agreements or his word. In all leading Western democracies we don’t have rational competent leaders with one exception, PM Orban from Hungary. He is the EU LEADER FOR THE NEXT 6 MONTH. He faced up to all the irrational spineless little people in the EU and has the courage to meet with President Putin.
He promised to respect Ukraine's sovereignty – he broke that word.
He stated clearly he was not going to invade Ukraine as late as 2021 – he clearly broke that word.
You seem to have a weak spot for authoritarian heads of state.
The spineless little people who dared to stand against a nuclear armed superpower on their doorstep?
Orban dared to face them knowing that they had little of no power to punish him – how brave.
Sure, all President Putin had to do was to roll over and do as told.
Ukraine lost its sovereignty 2014 when Obama/Biden and Nuland and organized and executed the regime change of the elected Ukrainian government. Kiev did not respect and implement the MINSK agreement, backed by the Americans. Ukraine became a de facto NATO member. Keep lying telling yourself all the propaganda fairy tales they tell you in Washington and MSM.
No all he had to do was to keep his word. Failing that he could if it was as easy as you seem to imply just ferment a counter coup.
He didn't because he couldn't – because there is and was a genuine wish in Ukraine for moving away from Russia and towards the EU.
As indicated if this was as easy as you imply Putin could have done it in reverse – he was much closer and not distracted by an Afghan debacle.
Ukraine did not complain about US involvement and the Russians had to start a revolt in the east by themselves as the protests were dying down.
Surprise surprise an agreement they were coerced into they were not happy about.
You do not understand what NATO is nor what de facto membership would imply.
Keep telling yourself the Kremlin propaganda lines. I'll stick by the evidence as it is often admitted to even by the Russians themselves.
You make no sense at all.
I showed you how Putin has broken his word several times and I illustrated that he had alternatives if as you and others suggest it was so easy to organize a coup in Ukraine.
The fact remains that Putin like most of the other leaders does not honor neither his word nor the treaties they have signed when doin that no longer is what they deem to be in their best interest.
On one hand, the Russian Federation's "will respond" trope has been repeated often enough to carry no weight any more.
On the OTHER hand, tho, the Russians are patient and strategic enough that we (the West) reaaaalllly should be terrified at whatever they decide to do, whenever they decide to do it…
Russia is already responding by creating new Military Districts inside Russia opposite the new NATO members.
Gilbert Doctorow pointed out on Judge Nap's Youtube channel yesterday that Russia is building a superhighway – perfect for transporting tanks and other heavy military equipment – to the Finnish border, despite the fact that Finland has closed its borders with Russia. He also pointed out that Finland has an 800-mile border with Russia, which is equivalent to the length of the contact line in Ukraine, but while Ukraine had 40 million population, Finland has only 5.5 million. So it's impossible for Finland to defend its border.
And of course, if there were ever a major US/NATO military buildup in Finland that looked like an invasion force, Russia would destroy it before it was ready.
Russia will not waste troop resources to invade Finland. They will learn about their mistake thru death from above.
If you analyzed anything you would know that Finland has the best defense against nuclear attacks (or conventional ones for that matter).
Add to this that beyond Helsinki they do not have the population density to justify WMD's and you would have known that death from above is not likely.
Keep up with the news, the USA starting with W. broke all existing nuclear weapons agreements. We are back to MAD, SQUARE #1.
Kekkonen's generation was very concerned about that. And now that all deals are off we are back to square one.
"An essential element of Finland's active neutrality policy was the concept of a Nordic Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone (Nordic NWFZ), first introduced by Kekkonen in May 1963 against the background of a Europe increasingly armed with nuclear weapons. The Finnish president proposed the creation of a zone consisting of Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. Their de facto nuclear-weapon-free status was to be formalized by the creation of a Nordic NWFZ that would remove them somewhat from the strategic plans of the superpowers. The zone idea was based on the supposition that, as these countries had no nuclear weapons in their territories, they might avoid nuclear attacks from either of the two alliances, whereas, the presence of nuclear weapons would certainly invite such attacks."
The people were fooled and lied to, there was no open give and take debate about nuclear threats, a most important part in relation to NATO membership. Public opinion was manipulated using lies and omissions as usual.
I know this and it does not change the Finland issue.
It is because they were concerned that they are presently so well prepared.
Irrelevant to the present situation – Finland is the best secured nation in Europe id not the world they have excellent shelters for far more of their population than others.
Only this did apparently not prevent them from building the best shelter facilities in Europe.
The people were not told anything – the people observed the SMO and made up their minds – I challenge you to find the campaign that preceded the change in public opinion and post dated the SMO.
Find evidence of this – it is a lie you would like to believe but it didn't happen.
Still in fantasyland? Come back to earth. Russia doesn’t need to take out the entire population to incapacitate the entire country.
There will never be a NATO build up to invade Russia – while they retain nukes there simply is no such threat.
Moving the goal posts? You did say death from above – not just destroyed homes.
Know much about nuclear weapons?
To incapacitate the country you would need non standard nukes i.e. ones that leaves deadly radiation for a long time.
Using that kind of weapons up wind from Skt. Petersburg – not a great idea.
People were moving back to and working in Hiroshima and Nagasaki only days after the bombs were dropped.