MOCOW, June 6. /TASS/. Moscow has never posed a threat to Helsinki or Stockholm, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the media on Monday.
"I just want to recall Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement that Russia has never posed any threat to either Finland or Sweden, just as these countries have not posed any threat to us. President Putin stated this more than once," Peskov replied to a request from TASS for comment on a statement by the head of the Finnish Security Police, Antti Pelttari, who noted that Helsinki was surprised Moscow was not trying to put pressure on Finland because of the country's wish to join NATO.
Finnish and Swedish ambassadors to NATO, Klaus Korhonen and Axel Wernhoff, on May 18 handed their countries’ applications for NATO membership to the alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on the same day that Ankara would not support the admission of Sweden and Finland to NATO until they determined their attitude towards terrorist organizations, in particular, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Speaking at the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Moscow on May 16 Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow would retaliate against the expansion of NATO’s military infrastructures in Finland and Sweden. At the same time, the Russian leader remarked that NATO’s admission of Finland and Sweden did not pose an immediate threat to Russia, because Moscow had no problems in relations with these countries.