Finland’s prime minister says Europe without America is not strong enough to stand up to Russia
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin on Friday drew a less-than-stellar assessment of Europe’s abilities to deal with Russia. During a visit to Australia, the leader of the candidate country for NATO membership insisted that Russia’s invasion and occupation of neighboring Ukraine had exposed Europe’s weaknesses and strategic mistakes to Moscow.
“I have to be very honest (…) With you, Europe is not enough at the moment, without America we would be in trouble.”He pointed to the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank.
Mme Marin insisted on helping Ukraine “Everything Means”The US has been instrumental in providing Kyiv with the weapons, financial means and humanitarian aid it needs to stop Russia’s advance.
“We need to make sure that we strengthen these capabilities based on European security, the European security sector, and that we can deal with different types of situations”She suggested.
He criticized Europe’s past innocence in dealing with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. “For a long time Europe has developed a strategy against Russia to tighten our economic ties and buy energy from Russia…we thought that would prevent war”But this attitude has changed “absolutely awful”Criticized by M.me Marin. “They don’t care about economic relations, they don’t care about sanctions. They don’t care about anything. »
Finland gained its independence from Russia nearly one hundred and five years ago, and despite being heavily armed, soon inflicted heavy casualties on the invading Soviet army.
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