Secretary General Stoltenberg confirms Helsinki’s entry. Moscow: “More military presence towards the West”
Finland will officially be a member of NATO from tomorrow. This was announced by the Finnish presidential office. The confirmation came from the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg. ”Finland’s flag will be hoisted outside NATO headquarters tomorrow when it becomes the 31st member of the Western Alliance,” Stoltenberg said.
“It is not Moscow that decides who joins” the Atlantic Alliance, “NATO’s door remains open. We will demonstrate this clearly tomorrow, by raising the flag of Finland” at NATO headquarters, and also that of Sweden “we hope for the next future,” Stoltenberg stressed.
“We cannot continue to allow Russia to take a pick at European security. We welcome the peace plan of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which upholds the core principles of the UN Charter, but there are no signs that President Vladimir Putin is preparing for peace: preparing to continue the war,” he added. “For this reason – he continued – we are united in our determination to stay on course and to support Ukraine for as long as necessary”. Tomorrow, he said again, “we will meet the NATO-Ukraine commission with the Ukrainian minister Dmytro Kuleba, to deal with Russian aggression. We don’t know when the war will end, but when it ends we must put in place agreements” aimed at “discouraging further aggression in the future”.
In tomorrow’s foreign ministerial meeting in Brussels “we will discuss, among other things, Russia’s growing alignment with China: any supply of aid from China to Russia would be a big mistake. At a time when Russia and China are challenging the international order and democrats it is even more important to come together between NATO allies and partners who have similar positions”, he concluded.
Russia
”The Russian Federation will strengthen its military potential towards the West and Northwest in response to Finland’s entry into NATO,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said, quoted by RIA Novosti news agency.
In January, Russia launched a plan to adjust the army to the new international framework characterized by the expansion of NATO. In an interview with Argumenty i Fakty, the chief of staff of the Russian armed forces, Valery Gerasimov, proposed a massive restructuring of the forces based on the formation of new military districts in Moscow and St. Petersburg. “The main objective behind this work is to ensure the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country and to create the conditions for progress in its social and economic development,” he said.
According to the plan, approved at an expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry’s board, three large-scale military units of motorized infantry based in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions will also be established. And a corps will be deployed in Karelia, on the border with Finland.
Source-www.adnkronos.com