Yesterday, on July 28, the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, began a working trip to Karelia with a visit to the new command and control center of the Petrozavodsk airport. He listened to reports on the organization of regional air traffic and visited the control room.
As specified, fom Petrozavodsk, Medvedev will travel by helicopter to Sortavala district, where he will visit a number of border infrastructure facilities on the border with Finland and hold a meeting on ensuring the security of the Russian Federation in the north-western direction in the context of Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO. The meeting is planned to be held in a closed mode, after which the Medvedev will give an official comment, StolicaOnego reported.
In his latest video, he went even further and revealed Russia’s intention to revise The Paasikivi-Kekkonen doctrine, which has actually been serving as a ground for upkeeping friendly relations between Russia and Finland under an Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance of Finland with the Soviet Union (and later, with its successor – Russia).
Medvedev stressed that it is obvious that the decision of Finland and Sweden to join NATO does not strengthen the security of the region, but on the contrary complicates the security situation, “for everyone.”
He also noted that Russia understands how the decision of joining NATO was made and “what kind of hysteria” there was around it, as the two countries, Finland and Sweden, were influenced to make the decision “from overseas and from Brussels,” as Medveded said.
“It is quite obvious that as a result of this decision, the most famous Paasikivi-Kekkonen line [doctrine], if we talk about Finland, and relations with neutral Sweden as well, are subject to revision,” the Russian official stated.
Concluding his statement, Medvedev said that Russia’s reaction to the accession of the two countries to NATO will be symmetrical.
“They can choose a different path of movement within the North Atlantic Alliance – either moderate, or, as they say, ‘open the gates wide’ and decide to create bases on their territory, deploy strike weapons […] And our reciprocal steps will be taken symmetrically to this,” Medvedev concluded.
Earlier, in his Telegram channel, Medvedev stated that the whole current policy of Europeans in the Russian direction is “a disgusting cocktail of arrogant rudeness, teenage infantilism and primitive stupidity.”
To back his point of view, Russian politician reminded that first, Europeans announced their intention to severely punish Russia “for its desire to protect suffering people and ensure its long-term interests” and tear the Russian economy to shreds.
“[They decided] to deprive money from energy exports. And they imposed total sanctions on everything that burns. Here you are!” Medvedev wrote. “They don’t care that Europe has a huge industry, developed agriculture, and EU citizens want to live in warm houses with water. The main thing is to let the Russians suffer.”
He went on saying that afterwards, Europe realized that “no one canceled the winter,” and alternative supplies of gas, oil, and coal are expensive or simply unrealistic now.
“They realized how difficult it is to ‘sit on three chairs.’ Like ‘we are helping Ukraine and harming Russia at the same time, but our own economy and people are also not healthy,” he noted.
However, he pointed that Europeans, in their hysteria about Ukraine, instead of trying to gain back contacts with Russia, from the fear of “freezing in their cold homes, looking out the frosted window at the fading production”, decided to increase the supply of weapons to Kiev and make the war continue.
“Well, well. The cold weather is coming…” Medvedev warned.
Ru-Main, 29.07.2022
