Finland closed its border with Russia on the false pretext of responding to a suspiciously timed illegal immigrant “crisis” that objectively paled in comparison to the US’ own, after which it swiftly allowed its new military patron access to 15 bases on its territory. This was followed by the “Baltic Defense Line’s” announcement and partial progress being made on implementing the “military Schengen”, both projects of which Finland is expected to participate in.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RIA Novosti on Wednesday that Finland was avoiding dialogue with Russia on their border issues, which involve Helsinki’s allegations that Moscow is waging “hybrid warfare” against it. These claims stem from the fact that 900 illegal immigrants entered their country from Russia in November instead of the usual one a day or less. Finland then closed its border with Russia and agreed to give the US access to 15 bases a month later.
Objectively speaking, Finland’s illegal immigrant “crisis” at the time paled in comparison to the US’ ongoing one, where a record 300,000 flooded into the country last December. That Nordic nation’s overreaction to 300 times less than that number suggested ulterior motives behind its moves and lent credence to suspicions that Western-linked but Russian-based human traffickers might have been responsible. The purpose behind this provocation was to manufacture the pretext for all that followed.
It was assessed in late November that “Finland Is Hellbent On Positioning Itself As A Frontline NATO State Against Russia”, with subsequent events confirming the veracity of that analysis. Right before the New Year, it became obvious that “CNN Is Lying About Who’s Responsible For Opening The Arctic Front Of The New Cold War” by manipulating perceptions of Finno-Russo tensions to justify the latest US base deal. By mid-January, Russia regained control of the domestic dynamics and began deporting some migrants.
The situation at the border has since improved, yet Finland is still avoiding dialogue with Russia, which discredits its initial claims that closing their crossings and partially fencing the frontier with “temporary structures” was just an ad hoc solution to a supposedly unexpected “crisis”. It’s for this reason why Russian Ambassador to Finland Pavel Kuznetsov told Sputnik on the same day as Zakharova’s statement that Moscow considers the avoidance of dialogue as “aimed at a complete severance of relations”.
The larger context in which their latest troubles have emerged concerns NATO’s ongoing “Steadfast Defender 2024” drills all across Europe till June, which coincided with the Baltic States’ Foreign Ministers announcing their plans to build a so-called “Baltic Defense Line” in late January. The preceding hyperlinked analysis forecast that Finland might informally join this initiative by turning its “temporary structures” along their frontier into permanent ones and joining the “military Schengen”.
The first of these moves amounts to the creation of a new “Iron Curtain” in the New Cold War while the second facilitates the free movement of troops and equipment throughout the bloc. Scaremongering about war with Russia like Poland just did or hyping up a faux border crisis like Finland is doing serve to justify these interconnected developments, which collectively create a single NATO-Russian front that ominously resembles the Nazi-Soviet one on the eve of the Great Patriot War.
The Arctic dimension is especially important to pay attention to since it’s a comparatively new arena of competition given Finland’s recent abandonment of its decades-long policy of military neutrality. Its opening also comes as the Ukrainian Conflict finally begins to wind down, thus enabling NATO to continue kindling tensions with Russia and distracting from its failure to inflict a strategic defeat on that Great Power via its neighboring former Soviet Republic.
Putting it all together, Finland closed its border with Russia on the false pretext of responding to a suspiciously timed illegal immigrant “crisis” that objectively paled in comparison to the US’ own, after which it swiftly allowed its new military patron access to 15 bases on its territory. This was followed by the “Baltic Defense Line’s” announcement and partial progress being made on implementing the “military Schengen”, both projects of which Finland is expected to participate in.
Upon doing so regardless of whether this is official or informal, Finland will have fulfilled late November’s forecast about how it was poised to position itself as a NATO frontline state against Russia, all with the intent of creating a new “Iron Curtain” from the Arctic to Central Europe via the Baltics. As the Ukrainian Conflict winds down, New Cold War tensions in the Arctic will heat up, which will maintain the EU’s image of Russia as an enemy and thus consolidate the US’ reassertion of hegemony there.
Source: the author’s blog
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