The Prime Minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, has reproached the European Union on Tuesday for not having taken «firmer» measures against Russia in 2014 after the annexation of the Crimean peninsula, as she considers that, in this way, the current war in Eastern Europe could have been avoided.
During his visit to the World Economic Forum in Devos, Switzerland, Marin regretted that in 2014 the European bloc applied «much tougher sanctions» against Moscow and with which «the results of history would have been different».
Thus, speaking to journalist Fareed Zakaria, the Finnish Prime Minister expressed her hope that the major Western powers have learned their lesson on how to deal with Russia.
Marin also assured that if Helsinki had been a member of the Atlantic Alliance in February 2022, Russia would not have decided to start a war against its neighbor Ukraine.
According to the Finnish leader, this is precisely one of the main reasons why the Scandinavian nation has applied for membership in the bloc. «We want to be members (…) because we never want a war in Finland again,» she said.
After decades of neutrality, Scandinavian Sweden and Finland applied to join the Atlantic Alliance in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, their membership is still frozen pending approval by the Turkish and Hungarian parliaments.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
