PETROZAVODSK, July 31. /TASS/. Western states have been trying to make an anti-Russian state out of Finland for a long time, including by using the contrived "Karelian issue," Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said.
"Finland’s membership in NATO significantly increases the length of the alliance’s ground border with our country and creates new threats to our national security," Patrushev said during a meeting on ensuring Karelia’s security in Petrozavodsk.
"The collective West has been taking measures to pull Finland into the anti-Russian campaign for a long time, including by using the contrived ‘Karelian issue,’ with speculations of the alleged Russian threat," he added.
Patrushev was talking about Finland's legally ungrounded claims on Western Karelian territories that became a part of the Soviet Union in accordance with the February 10, 1947 peace treaty signed in Paris.