WASHINGTON, January 12. /TASS/. The US is goading Russia into a military conflict by stationing its military and weapons in Finland, retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a former adviser to the Defense Secretary in the administration of former US President Donald Trump, has said.

"We have already put some of our forces in Finland and I suspect if we're allowed to, we are going to put missiles in that country. This turns Finland into a magnet for attack! The globalist elites continue to tell people 'The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.' This is absurd!" he said on X (formerly Twitter).

In December 2023, Finland and the United States signed a defense cooperation agreement. Finland pledged to give the US military access to 15 bases on its territory. Negotiations on the agreement lasted from August 2022 to October 2023. A number of Finnish experts criticized the deal.

After Helsinki and Washington signed the agreement, Finnish Ambassador to Russia Antti Helantera was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry. The diplomat was told that the responsibility for turning the zone of good-neighborliness in this region into a zone of possible confrontation lies entirely with the current Finnish authorities.