BY Ekaterina Blinova

 

Twenty years ago NATO absorbed Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia into a post-Cold War sweeping round of expansion. Now, the US-led bloc's activities in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region directly threaten Russia.

NATO’s activities in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region are part of preparations for a possible conflict with Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik on Thursday.

The military bloc's buildup in Romania, Poland and the Baltic States is provocative and exacerbates military tension along the perimeter of the Russian borders and creates threats to the country’s security, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

NATO's militarization of Eastern Europe and the Black Sea coast started intensifying since 2014, following the Maidan coup and the start of the war in Donbass, according to Dr. George Szamuely, senior research fellow at the Global Policy Institute and author of "Bombs for Peace: NATO’s Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia."

"That was the opportunity for the massive NATO militarization. I mean, NATO obviously tried to justify it by claiming that it was acting defensively in response to Russia, but of course it was already building on the militarization that was already implicit in the expansion of NATO," Szamuely told Sputnik, referring to the alliance's depiction of the Kiev regime's eight-year war against Donbass civilians as a confrontation with Russia.

 

NATO's Decades-Long Eastward March

The US-led military bloc embarked on its march eastward by inducting Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic as NATO members in 1999. In the next round of expansion – the fifth since the bloc's foundation – Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined the alliance in 2004. The admission of the Western Balkan countries occurred between 2009 and 2020, while Finland and Sweden were absorbed by the alliance in 2023 and 2024, respectively, cementing NATO's presence in the Baltic Sea.

In 2008, then NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer made a promise to Ukraine's pro-Western government led by Viktor Yushchenko that the Eastern European state would be admitted to the alliance. However, Ukraine found itself divided on the issue. The eastern regions of Ukraine were more inclined to maintain ties with Russia, which was strongly opposed to NATO's eastward enlargement. Russia viewed this expansion as a violation of the West's commitment to not move any closer to its borders following the end of the Cold War.

The US-backed coup d'état of February 2014 changed everything, with the Kiev regime seizing power, silencing pro-Russian dissenters and unleashing a war on Donbass. Since then, NATO member states have cranked up their support for Ukrainian forces by providing training and weapons. In addition, a colossal number of CIA covert bases, 12 in all according to reports, were set up across the eastern European state.

The alliance's website praises the strengthening of NATO's eastern flank, calling it "an important component of NATO’s deterrence and defense." Starting from 2017, NATO deployed four multinational battalion-size battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, led by the UK, Canada, Germany and the US, respectively.

NATO also sought to ensure seamless movements of its forces across Europe including to its eastern flanks, peddling the creation of a so-called "military Schengen" zone in 2017. The bloc advocated dismantling physical, legal and regulatory/administrative obstacles within the EU to streamline the transportation of weapons and troops. This concept gained traction during the Ukraine conflict.

Moscow's special military operation, which began in response to NATO's continuous enlargement and militarization of the regions bordering Russia, was used by the transatlantic military bloc as a pretext for further expansion.

Since February 2022, NATO has reinforced the existing four battlegroups on its eastern flank and established four more multinational battalions in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, doubling the number of troops on the ground. As of February 2024, the number of NATO boots on the eastern flank's ground amounted to 150,000, according to Foreign Policy magazine.

The US-led Transatlantic military bloc also beefed up its naval and air forces from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south, in close proximity to Russia's borders.

 

NATO’s Missile Defense in Europe Threatens Russia

Since 2014, the bloc has been focusing on enhancing its air and missile defense system in Eastern Europe, which is based on the US-made Aegis Weapon System (AWS).

This system was initially designed in 2009 to be situated close to Russia, creating concerns in Moscow due to the Aegis' launching capabilities. Although Washington previously stated that the system’s ballistic missile interceptors were directed towards Iran, repeated delays in the system’s implementation occurred in response to Russia’s objections.

On May 12, 2016, the Aegis Ashore missile defense site in Deveselu, Romania was declared operational. A similar site in Redzikowo, Poland, was accepted into service by the US Navy on December 15, 2023. It is due to become operational under NATO command by the summer of 2024. The Redzikowo Air Base is located just 93 miles from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Besides the Romanian and Polish sites, NATO's European air defense shield relies on mobile Aegis systems on five Arleigh Burke-class destroyers stationed by the US Navy in Rota, Spain.

Since October 2022, Germany has spearheaded the creation of the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), an integrated air-defense and anti-missile system, with a clear reference to Russia as a "threat". While 19 European NATO members jumped on Berlin's bandwagon, France, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Turkiye have so far refrained from joining. The system would include Germany's IRIS-T, America's Patriot, and Israel's Arrow-3 systems and be integrated with NATO's existing defense shield. The Western press admits that the Arrow 3 poses a direct challenge to Russia due to the system's extended range and hypersonic capabilities.

NATO Expanding Presence in the Black and Baltic Seas

Having admitted Finland and Sweden, NATO has turned the Baltic Sea into the alliance's "lake." In addition, the military bloc has started to expand the Romanian Air Force 57th Air Base Mihail Kogalniceanu which would accommodate up to 10,000 NATO soldiers, new runways and weapons platforms. Located near the Black Sea port of Constanta, the expanded base would be located around 80.1 miles from Ukraine's border and around 186 miles from the port city of Odessa.

Once the base is built, Crimea, the Sea of Azov and its coast as well as Russia's Krasnodar region would be within its striking range, Leonid Reshetnikov, a retired lieutenant general of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) warned Sputnik earlier this month.

"If you look at the map, the Black Sea is obviously a key strategic prize for NATO," said Szamuely. "I mean, they already have the Baltic Sea, they've got the Baltic Sea locked up and arrogantly in fact claiming that the Baltic is a NATO lake. And that was always the objective behind [the] Maidan [coup of 2014 in Ukraine]. Because the goal was not just to induct Ukraine into NATO, but to take the Black Sea. And they already have Romania, Bulgaria, Turkiye, then essentially, Russia is really pushed out into the east of the Black Sea and pretty much the Black Sea will largely become a NATO lake,"he said. 

"And that was the goal of Victoria Nuland, that [the US] want[s] Crimea. That's why Russia's move in 2014 to ensure the reincorporation of Crimea into the Russian Federation was a major blow for NATO because that was always the prize," the researcher continued.

 

NATO's End Game: What is it?

"The overall goal is to diminish Russia as a great power," Szamuely highlighted. "I mean, if you already control the Baltics and then if you control the Black Sea, then Russia is much diminished. That's also part of the goal of why they're so eager to get Ukraine into NATO. Because then, essentially, Russia is surrounded by NATO's satellite states. And of course, they will become forward bases for NATO. And Russia is surrounded by a hostile military alliance and therefore is unable in any way to exert itself in the world."

Make no mistake, NATO's eastward expansion has never been an "answer" to Russia's "behavior" as the military bloc claims, but the alliance's long-term strategy which was implemented step-by-step starting from the end of the Cold War, according to Szamuely.

"Now, of course, it's a little different because after the war they know that whatever the final outcome will be, Russia will extend its control of the Black Sea coastline. Now, they already have some of that because they control the southeast of Ukraine. (…) If [Russia] take[s] Odessa and they build a kind of a landline through to Transnistria, then, of course, the plan to control the Black Sea will have been destroyed," the expert said.

 

Russia Has No Incentive to Attack NATO

Despite the Biden administration and NATO leaders claiming that Moscow is eager to attack the alliance's member states if it is "allowed" to win in Ukraine, Russia clearly does not harbor any plans of that kind, according to the scholar.

The West's outlandish assertion is "the only way that they can persuade the public to support a foreign policy that the public obviously doesn't support," Szamuely explained, adding that "it hasn't been very successful so far." 

"They have to present it in a way that Russia is the aggressor, whereas in fact, the reality, and this was obviously kept very much away from the public, the reality is that this war was provoked by NATO expansion. It was NATO that was acting in an aggressive way, it was NATO that pushed its borders right up against Russia, it was NATO that wanted to incorporate so many satellite states within its borders. And indeed, this is NATO that is building this huge air base near Constanta," the researcher concluded.

 

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240329/natos-encirclement-of-russia-went-into-high-gear-under-20-year-game-plan-1117632683.html

 

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

 

 

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

 

EASY.

 

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 

READ FROM TOP

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

 

SEE ALSO: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/43171

The North Atlantic allies are killing democracy   By Teow Loon Ti 

Historically, many of its members have waged and/or supported wars in the name of democracy.

Democracy has been held up as the beacon of good governance and ethical behaviour in a good versus bad, or democracy versus authoritarian, perceptual dichotomy; the struggle for dominance of which is viewed in Manichean terms. The idea perpetrated is that unless democracy wins, the world will fall into the hands of the evil. As a consequence, methods used in the struggle for dominance had been ruthless, savage and unrelenting; particularly in the domains of propaganda, cold wars and hot wars. We see this currently happening in Ukraine and the genocidal war in Gaza.

Yet despite the profusion of information gathering, ideas and analysis, the fundamental nature of democracy, its practice and its evolution have not received the attention that it deserves. Taking the last three US presidential elections as example, it is quite obvious that President Abraham Lincoln’s description of the principles of democracy, one “of the people”, “by the people” and “for the people” have been violated both in terms of ideas and practice. For one, Trump won the 2016 presidential election even though he trailed Hillary Clinton by 233,000 votes because of a quirky US democratic practice of adding on Electoral College votes, putting a mark on the question of government “by the people”, and “of the people”.

As for government “for the people”, there are innumerable media reports that indicate the Trump I government favoured the rich. A Dominic Rush report in The Guardian, 2019, says, “In 2018 the richest 400 families in the US paid an average effective tax rate of 23% while the bottom half of American households paid a rate of 24.2%”.

On the “separation of powers”, an imperative which characterises democratic practice, Trump I had appointed so many judges to benches that Ian Millhiser of VOX (30/09/2020) says, “Long after Trump leaves office, these judges will shape American law — pushing it further and further to the right even if the voters soundly reject Trumpism in 2020”.

Following Trump I, the Biden administration did not fare any better. To cut the story short, a summary statement by Robert Reich, The Guardian, 2021, suffices: “… all the underlying structural problems were still with us – a nation deeply split, Trumpers still threatening democracy, racism rampant, corporate money still dominating much of politics, inequality still widening, inflation undermining wage gains, and the Delta variant of Covid still claiming lives”.

Across the Atlantic, the Anglospheric world did not fare any better. Between 2010 and 2024, the government was led by five Conservative Prime Ministers: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Of these, only David Cameron would have been the choice of the people. The rest were appointed through internal arrangements and therefore not truly reflective of government “of the people”. The period was marked by poor economic performance, incompetence, misconduct and, lamentably, Brexit. A bestseller by James O’Brien (Penguin, 2024) explains it all.

The malady of democracy in the Anglo spheres on both sides of the Atlantic is especially severe when the mainstream media tasked, in a proper democracy, with keeping the government honest acts instead in collusion with politicians. James O’Brien opines that if the most powerful media interests, such as that of Murdoch’s, in the country see themselves working actively in cooperation with a government towards shared ends, public interest will be strangled. Secondly, that collusion in “casting people pointing out the problems as the real problems, it heralds an open season on anyone deemed to be difficult”. This is nothing less than an open attack on one of the much taunted values of democracy, freedom of expression. He mentions that the third element of Murdoch’s capture of the country’s soul is the willingness to mould facts to the agendas shared with governments or to abandon facts altogether in pursuit of them.

YouTube watchers will not miss the fact that one of the most vocal critics of the US government policies and actions, the erstwhile weapons inspector Scott Ritter, had his home raided by the FBI. As for a clearly evident case of manufacturing consent, the US House of Representatives passed a law, HR1157, in September of 2024, allocating 1.6 billion dollars to the State Department and USAID to counter Chinese “malign” influence. This was in addition to the prevailing funding of the mainstream media to say good things about the US government. The democratic process is harmed because a bought mainstream media compromise the voters access to fair and independent information that enable them to elect representatives to act in their best interests and to hold the government to account for the actions taken on their behalf.

Despite the poor practice of democracy and outcomes, it serves the purpose of political elites to deify democracy to the point that any criticism of it is, in the eyes of the convinced, a sacrilege. Deification of democracy is not as far fetched as it would seem if we take just the Vietnam War as an example. In that war, above three million people were killed, including 58,000 American soldiers. No one would commit themselves to that kind of slaughter without compunction. Such massive killings would be in vain if the mission is not transcendental in nature, akin to a God driven mission to combat evil.

The world is now gearing up for a Trump II government reflexive of Trump I with its cronism and nepotism (usually used to characterise emerging economies) and other fascist straits, but with an added malaise of a convicted felon being re-electied as President. Apart from the spectre of a sick system, how else can one come to terms with a President-elect who campaigned on whipping up resentment against the most unfortunate people in their midst for political gains, the worst of which was the accusation of Haitian immigrants eating American pets. Regardless of what has been said of undocumented immigrants, they have been known to provide the cheap agricultural labour that keeps food on American tables affordable.

If the democracy in the US is unwell, what of the European NATO, AUKUS, QUADS, 5-Eyes and ANZUS members that jump to the US’s bidding? The majority of them bought into the narrative of democracy being under threat from external enemies like Russia and China through what is by now the familiar Chomskien theory of the manufacture of consent. Insecurities turned them into willing vassal states ready to sacrifice their own economies – such as cutting off vital Russian gas and compromising their own industries – to protect their democracies from external forces when the real threat derives from within.

We do need some form of gatekeeping if we were to be able to elect informed and wise leaders to handle ever more complex national and international problems in a world that is changing rapidly with the emergence of new powers, new institutions, new technologies, climate change, and ever closer economic integration. Otherwise the price is human extinction.

https://johnmenadue.com/the-north-atlantic-allies-are-killing-democracy/

 

 

NATO HAS NEVER BEEN ABOUT DEMOCRACY BUT ABOUT PREVENTING COMMUNISM WHICH ON PAPER IS GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE....

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

“It’s hard to do cartoons without democracy…”

         Gus Leonisky

Russia petrifies Finland | Serbia-EU spat | Trump-India dispute- Global News Factory

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vSJKiRd9RY

 

Finland joined NATO, waved the alliance flag, poked the Russian bear—and now it’s shocked the bear poked back.

Meanwhile, Serbia’s getting lectured by Brussels for daring to talk to Moscow, and Germany’s economy is gasping after its anti-Russia crusade backfired.

And Trump is cozying up to Pakistan over crypto deals, making India super furious. So, You’ve got Western hypocrisy doing cartwheels. This isn’t diplomacy anymore—it’s a circus.

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

ON THE FINN FRONT, WHY IS THE PRESIDEN OF FINLAND STUBBING HIS TOE ON RUSSIA?

 

by John Helmer, Moscow – June 1, 2025

Born with a large Russia-hating chip on his shoulder, Cai-Göran Alexander Stubb has been the ideal US Government recruit to be president of Finland. And so, since March 1, 2024, he is.

No one in Finnish politics has done as much as Stubb to cancel Finland’s post-war neutrality, drive the country into the NATO alliance, and establish US bases to escalate the war against Russia on the northern front.  Four weeks after taking power, Stubb announced his policy of deploying US forces, including missiles, drones, aircraft and heavy ground weapons at Finnish bases. “When American war materiel is placed on Finnish soil,” he said,  “it strengthens Finland’s defence.” 

In one of Stubb’s schemes, NATO’s regional Multi-Corps Land Component Command (MCLCC)  has been established and expanded at Mikkeli — 256 kilometres from St Petersburg as the missile flies – and subordinated to US command-and-control at Norfolk, Virginia.   US F-35As, newly purchased by the Finnish Air Force (FAF), will be based at Rovaniemi airbase, 24 minutes’ flying time  from St. Petersburg; the air defences for the base will be led by the medium-range, Israel-supplied David’s Sling,  recently beaten by Iran. US-supplied rocket and artillery systems, such as the HIMARS, which have been defeated by Russia in the Ukraine, are to be based at Rovajärvi, where the US Air Force has been coordinating B-52 bomber operations this year.

Rovajärvi is within HIMARS shooting range of the Russian border bases in the Murmansk region, such as Alakurtti and Kamenka. 

Loaded on board the USAF B-52 and the F-35As of the FAF, Stubb is also trying to draw US nuclear weapons on to Finnish territory by ending the current Finnish law banning storage of US air-dropped nuclear bombs and nuclear missile warheads or moving them into firing position there. “We in Finland must have a real nuclear deterrent,” according to Stubb, “and that’s what we have, because NATO practically gives us three deterrences through our membership.”  For the time being, he is opposed on deployment in Finland of nuclear weapons by officials in the current coalition government. 

The outcome already, according to an analysis by a Moscow think tank, is the opening of a new warfighting front against Russia from Poland to Finland, with a surge of US weapons paid for by the Europeans but directed by US commanders. “The entire northern and north-eastern flanks of the [NATO] bloc will be subordinated to a single command centre, which will significantly increase their military and operational connectivity and create a potential unified theatre of operations from the Baltic to the Barents Sea… Once all Nordic defence initiatives are implemented, the United States will be able to unimpededly project its force right at the Russian border, posing a significant security threat to Russia.”

On March 30, Stubb made an unscheduled trip   to play golf with President Donald Trump in Florida. “The presidents met over breakfast, played a round of golf and had lunch together,” Stubb’s office said no more at the time.  Trump tweeted: “I just played a round of Golf with Alexander Stubb, President of Finland. He is a very good player, and we won the Men’s Member-Guest Golf Tournament at Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach County, with the Legendary Gary Player, Senator Lindsey Graham, and former Congressman and highly successful Television Host, Trey Gowdy…President Stubb told me, in the most powerful of words, that the United States is STRONG, and BACK, AGAIN. I AGREE!” 

Trump revealed that he and Stubb had made a deal for “strengthening the partnership between the United States and Finland, and that includes the purchase and development of a large number of badly needed Icebreakers for the U.S.”  The icebreaker deal is worth several billion Euros. “If confirmed,” the Helsinki press reported, “it would be a crucial shot in the arm for Finnish heavy industry, which has struggled to fill its order books.”  The Finnish vessel price is several times cheaper than  US shipbuilders propose to charge;  the standing US Coast Guard contract for one Polar Security Cutter (PSC) is $1.3 billion. Trump’s Stubb deal violates existing US law  and breaches the pact which the Biden Administration had signed with Canada and Finland on icebreakers on November 13, 2024.  

In matching payback, what Stubb promised to do for Trump’s friends and constituents like Elon Musk, is suspected to be lucrative in the billions of dollars, but remains secret. Not quite,  because Trump’s friends like to boast.

Why Stubb for US stooge? Russian sources answer.

 

According to Sergei Andreyev, an expert on Finland at Tass, the answer for Stubb “is due to the family history. His father Göran Stubb (right) came from Priozersk, renamed Kyakisalmi after the Soviet Army withdrew at the end of the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940. His paternal grandparents were ethnically Swedish and came originally from Vyborg, which has remained Russian. The family had moved to Helsinki before the war, and Alexander Stubb was born there [April 1, 1968]. He was sent to high school in Florida, then university in South Carolina on sports scholarships. He then gave up golf for academic studies in Paris, Bruges and the London School of Economics.  Most of his salaried life has been paid for as a European Union functionary, then European parliament deputy, the European Investment Bank’s chief executive, and finally Finnish political posts.

Between Alexander Stubb’s start as Finland’s Foreign Minister in 2008, his promotion to Prime Minister in 2014-2015, and his election as president a year ago, there has been a steady shift of government policy towards membership of NATO. Documented in reports by the Moscow think tank Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC),   the Finnish government strategy papers have moved to identifying Russia and China as hostile threats. When the US putsch in Kiev triggered the Russian takeover of Crimea in February 2014 and the Special Military Operation followed in the Ukraine in February 2022, Stubb’s coalition argued that Finland’s protection required membership of NATO and integration with US and NATO forces.

“In politics,” Stubb said in a video interview in September 2022, “it is very difficult to admit mistakes, because mistakes must not be made. Still, many politicians, including me, make mistakes…I was wrong about visa freedom for Russians, Nord Stream, Rosatom, and about not being able to promote Finland’s NATO membership as Prime Minister… I thought that human interaction and travel would bring us [Finland and Russia] closer together. It didn’t happen, and you could say that’s fine, but it was one of the mistakes I made. I did raise security concerns and criticise the bilateral agreement between Russia and Germany, but when I was in office, I said that the pipelines would only have an environmental impact. I was wrong. Nord Stream should never have been built. The Baltic States were right, Poland was right, I was wrong…I was always an advocate of nuclear power. We tried to get two reactors in Finland. In the end, we only got one Russian with the help of Rosatom. Did I actively pursue the matter, not necessarily. But I was the prime minister and I should definitely have taken responsibility for it…I was unable to push forward Finland’s NATO membership. It was not easy, as only a small number were in favour of membership. But I work in a position where I should have been able to push the matter forward.” 

Stubb’s 20-minute interview is broadcast in English. He acknowledged that his failure to push Finland into NATO was “not easy when only 20% of the population was in favour.”  The Russian reaction to Stubb’s admission of “mistakes” came recently from Alexei Pushkov, head of the Russian Senate Committee on Information Policy. “We have to admit that Russophobia breeds stupidity and a lack of realism in political assessments. Moreover, it is surprising that many Western politicians are not at all shy about exposing their stupidity to the public”

In Finnish politics, said Jon Hellevig, a Finnish expert on Russia,  Stubb is “the hyena who comes along after the hunters have made their kill and feeds on the leftovers. Like the hyena, he also has one of the ugliest faces in Helsinki.”

The Russian assessment is that Stubb is a simple opportunist, a political vote-counter. He was keen on fighting Russia with the US on the Ukraine battlefield, but only so long as he counted on the US and NATO alliance to win. For his presidential campaign in 2023, Stubb was also counting on Finnish fear of the Russians and confidence they would be defeated in the Ukraine.

In Stubb’s mind, according to Andreyev, “Russia poses and will continue to pose a constant security threat to Europe and Finland; Finland will provide Ukraine with military assistance for as long as necessary. After Finland and Sweden joined NATO, the Nordic countries, the Baltic Sea region and the Far North formed a single geostrategic space, and the Baltic Sea region is of strategic importance to Finland.”  

Win or lose in Ukraine, a series of Finnish General Staff papers between 2021 and 2025 claimed that Russia’s priority would be to accelerate the build-up and modernization of forces in the revived Leningrad Military District bordering Scandinavia. The Finnish military — the General Staff has written —   does not believe in an early settlement of the situation in Ukraine and predicts a deterioration in relations between the Russian Federation and the West in the coming years;  Russia’s struggle for navigation in the Baltic Sea “by any means”; “continued attacks on underwater infrastructure in the Baltic”;  “the acceleration of the race of the West, Russia and China for the resources of the Far North”; and “strengthening the intelligence and sabotage activities of the Russian special services in Finland.”

The tough talk has reversed the decline of state budget spending on the Finnish military. While Stubb was Prime Minister and then Finance Minister (2015 and 2016), the government defence budget slipped downwards from 1.5% of GDP to 1.3%. Then between 2021 to 2023 military spending shot up to 2.4%.  The money ultimately ended up in the US military-industrial complex.

As it did, Stubb campaigned for the presidency by repudiating the criticism that he had been too soft on Russia in earlier years. Finland was again in danger from the Russian Empire, he claimed. “Putin is driven by nostalgia and legacy. Nostalgia of historic Russia with one language, one religion and one leader. A legacy of a leader who has made ‘Russia great again’. He thus sees Belarus and Ukraine as part of Russia. Won’t necessarily stop there.”  

The Kremlin log shows regular meetings and frequent conversations between Putin and Sauli Niinistö, who was president from 2012 to 2024, and with the preceding Finnish president and prime minister. But Putin has ignored Stubb for his entire career. He snubbed Stubb’s election in 2024, refusing to send the customary congratulations which Putin had sent Niinistö in 2012  and in 2018. 

Trump also ignored Stubb during his first term (2017-2021) when Trump discussed the construction of icebreakers with President Niinistö. The communiqué following their meeting in October 2019 carefully avoided mentioning Russia. 

Soon after Trump had won re-election last November, Stubb saw his opportunity. On November 11, he telephoned Trump and “discussed Ukraine, Russia, China, security in Europe and the icebreaker cooperation between Finland, the United States and Canada.”    He told Trump then and repeated at their subsequent meetings that Putin should not be trusted. 

 

Following the start of Trump’s second term in January of this year, Stubb promoted his plan to lift military spending to 3% of GDP by 2029. This means allocating a fresh billion euros of the state budget each year, and begin planning for further spending on armament in the 2030s.

This new money is also intended by Stubb to buy the votes of Finnish military industry, its corporate owners and workers who are concentrated in the Baltic shore region of Uusimaa, where about half the established defence companies and many of the new military technology start-ups are located.  In the 2023 parliamentary election Stubb’s National Coalition party was the largest vote-getter in this region. In the 2024 presidential vote in Uusimaa, Stubb won 55%. This was the second best regional score for Stubb whose Green Party opponent beat him in the big cities and in Lapland, on the northern Russian border.

Just weeks into his presidency and still counting on Russia’s defeat in the Ukraine, Stubb announced there was no need for Finland with its 5.6 million people and 1,340 kilometres of common border, to have a political dialogue with Russia. Instead, he claimed that military action was the only way to achieve peace, starting with his support for the defeat of Russia in the Ukraine. He also backed the building of a €380 million fence along the frontier with Russia for 200km. This began in April 2023;  two years later, just 35km of fence had gone up.  Stubb’s role has included pushing the idea that cross-border migration is a form of Russian hybrid war against Finland. To counter it, he promoted the enactment of legislation in mid-2024 to end Finland’s constitutional protections for asylum seekers   and the laying of mines in the border areas after he arranged for Finland to withdraw from the mine ban convention of 1997.  

On September 1, 2024, a defence cooperation agreement with the US came into force which, according to Andreyev’s report to RIAC of last month,   “opens 15 of [Finland’s] military facilities for possible use by American troops, while Helsinki will not charge rent for the premises or territories made available to the United States. On September 27 of the same year, the Finnish Ministry of Defense announced the deployment of the NATO headquarters in Mikkeli in the southwest of the country, 140 km from the border with the Russian Federation and in the northern region of Lapland. On April 1, 2025, the Finnish authorities announced preparations to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention on the prohibition of anti-personnel mines (previously, a similar step was taken by the defense ministers of Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Estonia), noting that this was ‘a cost-effective way to complement the capabilities of the armed forces,’ but adding that the country would be ‘committed to the humanitarian objectives of the convention.’ after a possible exit.

On April 15, 2025, a Finnish serviceman took part for the first time in a flight on a NATO E-3A long-range radar detection and control aircraft as part of the Ramstein Alloy 2025 exercises in the Baltic region. “Representatives of 17 countries are involved in the NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Force (NAEW &CF), in addition to them, Canada, France, Finland and Lithuania also provided their personnel. NATO noted that the E-3A is the first multinational flight unit created by the Alliance.”

The windvane outside Stubb’s office window began to blow in a new direction during the first month after Trump’s inauguration. Stubb decided he needed to take the measure of Trump’s thinking, and if need be, take new running orders. He camouflaged this by proposing a weekend game of golf with Trump, alongside the US Senate’s chief Russia hater, Lindsey Graham.

There has been a “softening” in Stubb’s hardline stance towards Russia, Andreyev reports, “after the election of US President Donald Trump, who had a different view of the Ukrainian conflict after the extremely pro-Ukrainian administration of Joe Biden.. During his March 29, 2025, visit to Florida, Stubb attempted to dissuade Trump from cooperating with the Russian Federation, and also called for tougher sanctions against Moscow.The Finnish leader had to admit that Europe had begun discussing the resumption of contacts with the Russian Federation, and Finland needed to ‘prepare mentally’  for restoring relations with Russia at the political level, since ‘nothing cancels the fact that Russia is and always will be a neighbour’.”

At the same time, Stubb tried to promote himself as the Europeans’ and Ukrainians’ best go-between with Trump. “At the moment, I see Finland’s role more in being able to articulate the messages of Europeans to the United States and the messages of the Americans to Europeans,” Stubb told reporters the day after the golf game.

Stubb has continued to promote himself. Briefing local reporters on May 18, he said he had “engaged in a lengthy phone conversation on Saturday with US President Donald Trump, followed by a call on Sunday morning with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. ‘Zelensky is patient, but Trump is starting to grow impatient… towards [Vladimir] Putin,’ Stubb claimed.” 

Trump’s telephone and tweet log – when the President was in Saudi Arabia —  reveals no conversation with Stubb on May 18.    Instead, Trump disclosed that on the next day, May 19, he had included Stubb in a party call with “Zelenskyy, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, President Emmanuel Macron, of France, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of Italy, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, of Germany, and President Alexander Stubb, of Finland… immediately after the call with President Putin.” 

In Trump’s report on his call with Putin, there is no sign of Stubb’s claim of Trump’s impatience with Putin. Instead, according to Trump, “[I] just completed my two hour call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. I believe it went very well. Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War. The conditions for that will be negotiated between the two parties, as it can only be, because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of. The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent.” 

Politically, Stubb the opportunist,  who had succeeded in winning the presidency on the line of war  against Russia,  is trapped by his own opportunism because the Finns are now saying they are more fearful for their security than before Stubb’s escalation. “Confidence in NATO’s Security Guarantees Has Weakened During Trump’s Second Term,” reports the latest public opinion polling by the Finnish Business and Policy Forum (EVA), published on April 29. “Two out of three (66%) Finns have a positive attitude towards Finland’s NATO membership. Over six months, support for NATO has decreased by five percentage points.  More than half (53%) now believe that NATO membership does not guarantee that other countries would ultimately assist Finland in a real crisis. Confidence in NATO support has seen a significant (-17 percentage points) decline compared to the previous survey conducted in autumn 2023.” 

There are two reasons for the turn-around in Finnish attitudes. The first is that Russia has  retaliated for the militarization of Finnish territory by the US and NATO by reactivating Soviet military bases along the Russo-Finnish frontier,  and by matching in military capabilities and firepower, including nuclear arms, whatever Stubb and Trump plan to do.

This new Finnish apprehension reverses the shift in Finnish sentiment against Russia in 2022. “As recently as 2007, over one-third would have avoided taking positions that could have jeopardized relations with Russia. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, only slightly more than ten percent still thought this way.” 

The second reason is reported by EVA managing editor, Sami Metelinen: “trust in the security provided by NATO has taken a significant hit in the minds of many. The reason behind this shift in attitude lies in the changes Donald Trump has brought to U.S. foreign policy.  Just five months ago, when Joe Biden was President of the United States, a clear majority [of Finns] regarded the United States as an important partner for Finland and a defender of Western values globally…Finns’ foreign policy views have in recent years shifted as rapidly as world politics itself. The majority of Finns turned in favor of NATO membership practically overnight when Russia launched its large-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022.1 Finland joined NATO in April 2023, and at the same time, attitudes towards the United States — Finland’s key ally through NATO — became significantly more positive…Trump’s statements have clearly affected perceptions regarding the reliability of NATO’s security guarantees, as Finns’ trust in the deterrent power of these guarantees has  collapsed.  Now, only one-third (32%) believe that NATO’s security guarantees are such a powerful deterrent that no one dares to challenge its member states.” 

To combat the rise of the opposition Social Democratic Party in the Finnish public opinion polls  and preserve his re-election chances, Stubb is now selling pieces of the Finnish economy to Trump’s friends. According to research by the Athens-based writer Manos Tzafalias, Elon Musk is reported to be considering a large investment in a Finnish production chain for large electric car batteries and in high-volume  electricity- consuming data centres for his Artificial Intelligence businesses. Hussain Sajwani, the Damac real estate group owner in Dubai and investor with Trump in UAE golf resort and other ventures, is considering a data centre project in the southwestern city of Kouvola. 

For Russian security analysts, Stubb’s Finn front is a fake front camouflaging a plethora of business transactions to profit Trump and Stubb who is “not an autonomous political figure. “

“The Russia-hating virus has penetrated deep into Finland’s military and political elite, prompting it to launch preparations for a war we can hardly fathom,” commented the Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova last week.   “We have been keeping a close eye on the increasingly active military preparations and exercise drills in the countries of the so-called collective West. The fact that they have stepped up their activities in this domain confirms, among other things, that NATO has taken an aggressive posture and has set sight on the territories of its new member states. In this case, it is eying Finland…The manoeuvres include performing wartime tasks. I would like to stress that they have been talking about practicing wartime tasks rather than countering terrorists or providing emergency relief. This means that an ordinary Navy exercise, which used to be held at a national level without any foreign military forces, has suddenly evolved into yet another escalatory tool at NATO’s disposal along the Russian border, and the Finish authorities offered their full-throttle support to this initiative.”

“Maybe they could explain what they mean by that. All they do is focus on the objectives related to this war and spend billions from their national budgets on promoting this so-called narrative, as they say in the West. At the same time, the government of this country has been turning a blind eye to the domestic economic woes they are facing, primarily in terms of the social and economic situation there. This creates an impression that someone is pushing them off the cliff while they fail to understand where they are headed, let alone stop moving in this direction.”

“I think that it is up to the people of this country to assess these developments. On the other hand, we understand the extent to which the media space is blocked. Few people realise the scale of the all-out confrontation with Russia the collective West has been seeking to impose on them and the way this contradicts their national interests, as well as the fact that these steps can literally undermine their national security.” 

The cordiality which Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had expressed with Stubb when he was Finland’s foreign minister, has now disappeared because he has become an American puppet. “The Americans have militarised all of Europe,” Lavrov said last November, “compelling it to finance the Nazi regime [in Kiev].  The veneer observed during the era of détente and peaceful coexistence has swiftly vanished. Formerly neutral countries – Finland and Sweden – have rapidly altered their stance. They previously maintained close ties with our border regions, frequently visiting and hosting families across the border. I have visited these regions; it was a tranquil frontier. Overnight, this façade dissipated. The current President of Finland, Alexander Stubb, whom I have known since his tenure as Foreign Minister, is now among the most fervent Russophobes. They are erecting walls and proclaiming to the world that Russia is poised to attack them. Essentially, they are misguiding their electorate.” 

Stubb was becoming a neo-Nazi, Zakharova warned on April 24.  “He went on to accuse our country of having imperialism as part of its DNA. Turns out, Mr Stubb is also an expert in genetics. If this is not the case, he must recall that those who used to talk about genetics and racial supremacy in Western Europe were not educated in this subject and ended their lives badly…there is only one thing Finland’s leadership has demonstrated. It showed that it is totally incapable and helpless when it comes to standing up for its national interests. Ordinary people in Finland will have to foot the bill – what a pity.” 

 

https://www.theinteldrop.org/2025/06/02/on-the-finn-front-why-is-the-presiden-of-finland-stubbing-his-toe-on-russia/

 

 

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