Russia will monitor the actions of Finland, which promised not to deploy nuclear weapons after joining NATO, and evaluate not words, but deeds, as said by the Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
Earlier, Finnish Foreign Minister, Pekka Haavisto, stated that Finland does not seek to deploy NATO nuclear weapons on its territory.
“We are following the ongoing discussion in Finland in connection with the decision on the country’s accession to NATO, including on the issue of the deployment of nuclear weapons on Finnish territory. In this regard, I would like to draw attention to the statements of Finnish Foreign Minister Haavisto that nuclear weapons, according to his conviction, will not appear on the territory of Finland after its accession to NATO. However, we will assess the situation in this extremely sensitive area not by words, but by deeds,” Zakharova said at a briefing on Thursday.
She added that, according to the statements of the Finnish leadership, Helsinki did not put forward preconditions for joining the alliance, because “they do not want to narrow the scope of their activities within this military bloc.”
However, Finland glosses over the fact that NATO has declared itself a “nuclear alliance”, and is already calling on Finland to participate in exercises involving the development of anti-Russian scenarios for the joint use of nuclear weapons, Zakharova noted.
“We will carefully and attentively monitor what will be answered to such invitations in Helsinki, and we will draw our conclusions,” the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry stated.
In addition, few days ago, information was made public that almost half of Finns oppose the deployment of a NATO base in the country if Finland joins the alliance. The study was published by MTV Uutiset and its results showed that about 48 per cent of respondents oppose the placement of the database on the country’s territory.
Ru-Main, 12.01.2023
Source: RIA Novosti
