Reuters, Naantali :President Vladimir Putin suggested on Friday Russia could move its troops closer to the Finnish-Russian border if Finland joins NATO and called for measures to improve conflict prevention over the Baltic.Finnish armed forces “would become part of NATO’s military infrastructure, which overnight would be at the borders of the Russian Federation”, Putin said after meeting Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.”Do you think we will keep it as it is: our troops at 1,500 (kilometres, 900 miles) away?”Putin’s first visit to Finland since the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2014 comes amid increased Russian and NATO activity in the Baltic region, and with the militarily neutral Finland and neighbouring Sweden increasing their co-operation with NATO. It also comes a week before a NATO summit in Warsaw.”NATO perhaps would gladly fight with Russia until the last Finnish soldier,” Putin said.”Do you guys need it? We don’t. We don’t want it. But it is your call.”Airspace over the Baltic has been the arena for a rash of close encounters between Russian and Western aircraft in recent months, and the former Soviet Baltic states have called on NATO to step up air defences in the region.Putin and Niinisto called for measures to improve security, with the Finnish president urging that no military planes should fly over the Baltic with identification devices switched off.”We all know the risk with these flights and I have suggested that we should agree that transponders are used on all flights in the Baltic Sea region,” Niinisto said.Putin said Russian planes flew at times with identifying transponders off, but NATO planes did it much more often.He said Russia would talk to NATO about increasing mutual trust and improving conflict prevention at the Russia-NATO council meeting that will take place after the NATO summit.The Finnish and Swedish foreign ministers in May attended a meeting of their NATO counterparts, an indication of pursuing stronger ties.Putin said that “if Finland enters NATO, that means that Finnish soldiers would have stopped being independent, stopped being sovereign in the full sense of this word, they become part of the military infrastructure of NATO, which will in an instant find itself on the borders of Russia.” He noted that most Russian troops are well away from the countries’ border now but asked, in the event of NATO accession, “Do you think we’d still act that way?”Putin’s visit came as the EU extended sanctions against Russia until February. The sanctions and Russia’s retaliatory ban on food imports from the EU have been a blow to the Finnish economy.He suggested that there are ways around the problem for Finland, saying “Turn to London, they will show you,” a clear reference to the recent referendum supporting Britain leaving the EU.Niinisto in turn said Russia could get the sanctions removed by implementing terms of the Minsk agreement aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine.Niinisto also said that in their meeting he proposed that all warplanes flying in the Baltic region keep their transponders turned on as a confidence-building measure and Putin said he agreed with the idea. The proposal reflects increased concern after several incidents in the spring when Russian planes flew close to U.S. naval vessels in the Baltic.
