He reassured that Finland has been prepared to defend its allies for decades and said, “There will be more troops there in the future than before the Ukraine war.”
Putin declared the creation of the ‘Leningrad Military District’ close to the Finnish border and the deployment of more military forces to the region in reaction to Finland’s accession to NATO.
However, the Russian leader has consistently called worries about a possible assault on NATO members “complete nonsense,” claiming that Russia has no interest in fighting the alliance.
“There is no need to ‘waste time’ on ‘low-quality’ claims,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response to Washington’s 2021 highlighting of a military build-up beyond Ukraine’s border.
At the time, he told reporters, “The movement of our army units and military equipment… is exclusively our business.” “No one has ever been threatened by Russia.”
