All news

Finland joining NATO fraught with conflict between nuclear powers — Russian diplomat

"As history has shown us, such policies have never yielded success," Russian Ambassador to Belgium said added

MOSCOW, April 7. /TASS/. Finland’s decision to join NATO is a strategic mistake as such policy is fraught with the risk of a direct confrontation between nuclear powers, Russian Ambassador to Belgium said on Friday.

"This course toward whipping up confrontation with our country has been adopted by all of NATO’s European countries. This is a strategic mistake, a policy, which, regrettably, adds to the threat of a direct conflict between nuclear powers. And, naturally, any talk about enhancing security is out of the question," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.

He stressed that building security in Europe not together with Russia but against it is a "tragic strategic mistake." "As history has shown us, such policies have never yielded success," he added.

Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership in May 2022 but their bids were blocked by Turkey, which demanded that the Nordic countries declare Kurdish organizations as terroristic as well as extradite individuals accused of terrorism or having participated in the attempted coup d’etat in Turkey in 2016. On March 30, the Turkish parliament ratified a protocol on Finland’s joining the alliance and Helsinki was officially admitted as the 31st member of the alliance on April 4.