Overview
- In a Jan. 1 national address, President Alexander Stubb said relations between Helsinki and Moscow have changed forever.
- Stubb said peace in Ukraine is closer than ever and vowed Finland will do everything possible to safeguard Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had accused Finnish elites of what he called animal Russophobia, saying decades of cooperation with Moscow did not remedy it.
- Lavrov also pointed to Finland’s wartime cooperation with Nazi Germany and Finns’ participation in the blockade of Leningrad as commonly known facts.
- The statements mark a sharp escalation in public rhetoric with no new diplomatic or military measures reported.