Putin: Who, Me?

“They (the West) took Finland and dragged it into NATO! Why, did we have any disputes with Finland? All disputes, including those of a territorial nature in the middle of the 20th Century, have all been resolved long ago,” Putin said in an interview published on Sunday.

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“There were no problems, but now there will be, because we will now create the Leningrad military district there and definitely concentrate military units there,” Putin added in the interview by Russian state broadcaster Russia 1.

Putin also dismissed as “complete nonsense” remarks from US President Joe Biden, who earlier this month warned that Putin would “keep going” if he takes Ukraine, suggesting that Russia could eventually attack a NATO ally and draw US troops into conflict.

[That impression didn’t just start with the invasion of Ukraine. It began with Putin’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 and the theft of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, followed by the attempted dismembering of Ukraine in 2014. Putin has also fomented ethnic-based unrest in Moldova and the Baltic states too, the latter of which *are* members of NATO. Maybe Putin would have stopped at the NATO borders, but we haven’t seen any evidence of that yet. Meanwhile, if Putin is being forced to shift units to the 800-mile border with Finland, that’s not a bad thing for the rest of NATO. — Ed]

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