Overview
- Finnish foreign minister Elina Valtonen was quoted as saying Russia attacked 19 neighboring countries over the past century and that no one attacked Russia.
- Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova promised to send Valtonen a Finnish translation of the Russian Military Historical Society’s Black Book on Swedish and Finnish Russophobia.
- Zakharova questioned Valtonen’s grasp of history and cited Finnish incursions into Soviet Russia in 1918 and 1921 before the 1939–1940 war.
- Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused today’s Finnish elites of “animal Russophobia” and recalled Finland’s wartime cooperation with Nazi Germany and participation in the blockade of Leningrad.
- In the UK, Workers Party of Britain leader George Galloway criticized Valtonen’s statement on X, calling the claim nonsensical.