Russia said on Monday that Finland’s reversal of its long-standing ban on nuclear weapons requires a response as tensions between NATO and Moscow continue to rise.
Finland’s parliament voted on June 17 to lift the ban, which allows the country to receive, transport, and facilitate the movement of nuclear weapons on its territory as part of allied operations, a step it took to align itself with NATO, which the country joined in 2023. The parliament approved the government-proposed amendment in a vote of 125 to 61.
“The results of the vote represent both bright and unflattering victory of the blind Russophobia of the past few years over what we have always viewed as pragmatic sanity in Finland,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, according to TASS.
“And let nobody doubt that [response] measures will be taken timely and effectively. In this light, the Finnish people need to think whether this decision made by their elites will actually enhance security in Finland itself,” she added.
The changes to Finland’s law open up the possibility of the country, which shares a border with Russia of more than 800 miles, joining NATO’s nuclear sharing program, under which the US has nuclear bombs stationed in five NATO states: Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Turkey. When Russian
France is also looking to deploy its nuclear weapons to other countries, with French President Emmanuel announcing in March that Paris plans to expand its arsenal and will allow the deployment of nuclear-armed French aircraft to eight allied countries: Germany, Britain, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, and Denmark.
So far, there are no confirmed plans for French deployments to the eight states listed above, but if the plan does come to fruition, it would put NATO nuclear weapons much closer to Russia. Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, said earlier this year that his country doesn’t intend to host nuclear weapons in “peacetime,” but if the law is changed, such deployments would be possible.
