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Bauer said that “the issue of our deployment in Finland” depends primarily on the decision of the Scandinavian country.
In an interview with Agence France-Presse, Bauer said, “At the present time, such a request has not been received. But of course it may come in the future, and then we will have to look into it.”
On Tuesday, Finland will become the 31st member of NATO, following a historic shift in the non-alignment strategy it has been following for a long time, in a step that doubles the length of the common border between NATO and Russia.
The operations launched by Russia in Ukraine prompted both Finland and its neighbor Sweden to abandon the policy of non-alignment and, last year, to apply for NATO membership.
The Kremlin did not comment on Finland’s membership in the alliance, but it pledged to reinforce its forces in the northwest of the country in the coming years.
“We haven’t seen any significant movement of forces yet, and the main reason is that they (the Russians) need all the forces they have in Ukraine,” Bauer said.
“They cannot afford to deploy so many forces along the Finnish border, where NATO does not pose a direct threat,” he added.
The Dutch admiral stressed that NATO’s plans to defend Finland in the face of any possible attack would be “primarily and before anything else on Finland’s shoulders, given that its forces have great capabilities.”
“The additional border with Russia is a problem that Finland has already been dealing with for 75 years,” Bauer said.
“The territory that we have to defend has increased, but we have Finland’s forces to help NATO with that,” he said.
However, the head of the NATO Military Committee confirmed that if Russia launched an attack, the countries of the bloc “will help defend Finland with strategic reinforcements.”
Bauer said that Finland’s strategic location and the strength of its army, and later the membership of its neighbor Sweden, if it won, are things that would “facilitate” NATO’s task of defending its eastern flank.
