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Finnish President Sauli Ninistö announced on the 15th (local time) that President Vladimir Putin had responded calmly to the notification of Finland’s decision to join NATO.
“Last week, I spoke to Putin on the phone and expressed his position on joining NATO,” Ninistö said in an interview with CNN. “The conversation was generally calm and cool.”
“He did not repeat the same threats he had made before,” he added. “What is surprising is that he has calmly accepted this fact. It is unlikely that immediate problems will arise.”
Earlier, President Ninistou and Prime Minister Sanna Marin held a joint press conference in Helsinki and officially announced their position on NATO membership.
Finland plans to apply for NATO membership following receiving parliamentary approval.
Finland shares a border with Russia for 1,300 km, and with this in mind, when the United States-led NATO was launched in April 1949, it did not join and maintained military neutrality for 74 years. come.
However, following Russia’s forcible annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014, public debate on NATO accession began to emerge.
Russia has threatened to retaliate once morest the Nordic countries that have not joined NATO.
“Russia poses no security threat to Finland,” Putin said in a phone call with President Ninistö.
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