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Written by Uriel Araujo, PhD, anthropology researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts
Finland and Estonia, two NATO countries, have recently signed an agreement about Baltic Sea security. Moreover, and more importantly, they have announced their intention to blockade the Gulf of Finland by closing it to Russian shipping. The Russian Foreign Ministry reacted by stating that Russia would regard any such action as a violation of maritime law. Establishing their boundaries (pertaining to the Gulf of Finland’s contiguous zones) would be within their sovereign rights, of course. However, restricting maritime shipping the way they intend to do cannot be described as anything else than a violation of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea – with potential serious consequences.
The Gulf of Finland extends to Saint Petersburg in Russia to the east. Its southern coast contains a network of ports plus the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant. The port of Primorsk at the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland is important for oil products, for example – there are several others. It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of the gulf for Russia. For one thing the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline began in Finnish waters.
With that said, as Pavel Klachkov (Russian political scientist and a Financial University director) remarks, NATO’s military presence is increasing in the Baltic region, which is such a strategic area for Russia as well. In April, for instance, NATO joint military exercises commenced in Lithuania. Finland’s accession to the Alliance, he argues, gave “new momentum to the northern direction, where conditions are being created for a potential conflict between NATO and Russia.” The Atlantic Alliance has also begun setting up a headquarters in Mikkeli, a Finnish city, which lies very close to the Russian border.
He adds: “Since Finland joined the North Atlantic Alliance, it has quickly integrated into its operational structure and actively participates in exercises. These maneuvers are not merely a show of force — they are a rehearsal for possible military conflict scenarios with Russia. NATO’s active operations in the Kola Peninsula and the Gulf of Finland, both in close proximity to Russia’s borders, are particularly notable.”
Moreover, NATO exercises have been rehearsing the blockade of key routes for Russia – both the Suwalki Gap and the Gulf of Finland are crucial for supplying Russia’s northwestern regions. This is the larger context behind the recent Finnish-Estonian announcement.
After the 2022 NATO Summit in Madrid, Biden famously said that Russian President Vladimir Putin was looking for the “Finlandization of Europe”, but would instead get the “NATOization” of that continent. With the accession of Sweden and Finland, the Atlantic Alliance’s territorial reach has extended as far out as the Russian eastward Arctic flank, thereby making Russia the only non-NATO country in the Arctic. Many Western journalists and commentators would be quick to dismiss the aforementioned Russian political scientist’s analysis about NATO enlargement as “Russian propaganda”. However, going back in time a bit, in December 2019, Mark Cancian (a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies) wrote that “it’s time to stop NATO expansion. He commented back then on the American support for North Macedonia’s membership in the NATO alliance, and wrote that “a larger NATO embroils the United States in obscure regional disputes, commits it to defend exposed countries, and unnecessarily antagonizes the Russians.” Voices like that of Cancian or – to name a more famous Western political scientist – that of John Mearsheimer have largely been ignored by American policy-makers. This is unfortunate.
In November 2020 I wrote that, under Joe Biden’s presidency, Washington would pursue the policy of countering and encircling Russia, bringing changes not only in US relations to Ukraine and Eastern Europe, but to the entirety of Europe. At the time, tensions were rising in most – if not all – countries neighboring Russia. For one thing, in September 2020 NATO troops took part in provocative military exercises in Estonia near the Russian border.
Earlier that same year Washington sent no less than 20,000 troops to Europe to take part in the NATO exercise “Defender Europe 20”, It involved 18 countries across 10 European nations, including Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Georgia (all of which share a border with the Russian Federation). It was described as the “largest military exercises on the continent since before the end of the Cold War.” From 2020 onwards things intensified considerably – with vast consequences for the continent and the whole world.
Considering all of this, it is really quite impossible to disregard Russian concerns and complaints about NATO expansion (or about Ukraine’s relations with the Alliance, for that mere) as nonsense or mere rhetoric. From a Russian perspective, those are of course valid concerns pertaining to its national security and vital interests. The Atlantic Alliance appetite for growth since at least 1999, with its breach of the 1990 promise, has in fact been one of the main causes of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine since 2014. One could arguably reason that Moscow’s main goals (culminating in the 2022 campaign) have been basically a response to that.
Ukraine is of course a focal point for tensions due to many reasons, historically. NATO-Russian tensions however extend way beyond the Ukrainian question. There is indeed a lot of room for escalating such frictions in the Northern flank of the Alliance. And the US-led West seems to be bent on doing precisely that – which once again makes the world a less secure place.
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well, once the urkonazi idiots have been used up as cannonfodder, its time for the next eurotards to become cannonfodder.
guillable clowns. they never learn that we americans will use you up and throw you away like a condom.
typical two faced backstabbers anti anerican saul alsky rules for radicals democratic biden ites propagandas for wef.
yeah man. like those fda approved one® butt stuff approved™ condons.
i don’t understand why these baltics and ukrainians like to be so deeply cannonfoddered.
and 99% has not learned that is the jew that controls them all
sf tard on duty with less brain than a chicken
all the baltic postage stamp vassals are run by (((neocon dual nationals))) parachuted in by washington. they would do well to remember that interfering with merchant shipping is a casus belli in itself. america went to war on numerous occasions following attacks on its shipping (real and fabricated.) war of 1812, uss maine 1898, lusitania ww1, tonkin gulf, and nearly went to war with n. korea, pueblo, 1968.
us citizens are the most dummies people i have never met. especially in new york. they are dummier than crash test dummies. so unsophisticated, overminded ,divided people going towards new civil war and that war winner is from south border. good luck with that
it won’t happen. trump-vance will win by a landslide, the war in ukraine will be de-funded, nato will become irrelevant, china will reunify taiwan, republicans will have overweeningly majority in the senate & house of representatives, at least 3 to 6 conservative supreme court justices will be appointed in the trump vance years. all thanks to weak-senile biden failure to stand up to bibi the war criminal chickenshit neatanyahus plans for regional war.
basically wolves (biden-harris vs netanyahu gangs) started to eat each other.
wolves in sheeps clothing and everyone knows that’s about romulus, the founder of rome who was raised by a she wolf.
dream. on. for a start that would mean peace and they won’t allow that second two thirds of the scotus are catholics now and they will only increase that. its a sweet dream but the world’s awakening now.
stop dreaming. the reality is trump and vance control nothing but fan the flames. the deep state are the ones who make therdecisions and only inform trump to smooth ovet the chaos in the public eye. this is how govt rules. although trump himself is going to cause chaos if he is elected with his own brand and beliefs of making mischief.
deep state… just call it what it is, zionist counterfieting bankster funded donor class jew criminal mafia scum.
trump and harris are irrelevant nonentities. trumpo may cut his losses with ukraine, but the war is irretrievably lost anyway. he will start wars with iran and china. you might as well just appoint a stuffed animal or a trained monkey as president, it makes no difference. (((the people in charge))) will tell him what to do. he is in their pocket.
then u woke up under your fat mother and father , and changed diapers before toilet. and there u are peeing like ladies because your short hands caused by incest cannot reach your cuckold baby sausage under your light gray fat belly. after peeing u call your family to lift u up, then they feed u up again 10 bic mac burgers which r by the way the worst burgers in the world developed by fat americans.
“developed by fat americans”
true……
i see trump with his small hat on praying with the jews on the 7th. he’s just another jew puppet
the reality is russia can squash these tiny little worm countries very easily. so the suicidal, tough talking children in these countries should just keep your mouths shut. i wonder who gave these little worms their marching orders? sounds like uncle shmuel in washington, dc. another group of evil, dastardly, despicable and very stupid scumbags who have an infantile, reckless mentality.
finland is far tougher opponent than ukraine. russia is welcome to try it. any russian is welcome to live here and work here. i have many russian friends. however if russians like to come with guns, they are also welcome to die in here.
dream on, satanas.
your pussified military can’t even beat the moscow police department you nato whore!
i would love moscow police department to come in to fight f35s and leopard 2s. your the one who is pussy. why your not in ukraine? scared of lead poisoning?
there is nothing to beat. if u open some other media than ruled by kremlin u should know there is lack of police forces. in a matter of fact lack of all kind of labour because your pussy citizen has escaped. they dont want to learn fly or trust russian weapons. like mig21 “down i go.”
findland got conned, you’ll see the outcome and realize you were sitting on american oil reserves…ha ha ha ha…enjoy your slow decent into nato hell…
only who are conned daily basis are russians. or how can u explain only kremlin media is allowed, internet facebook instagram blocked, soon youtube and luckily that minecraft looking telegram as well. and new school books are printed. so earlier they teached school kids with wrong info. stupid russians. kids are learning how to use ak47. why. because no more soldiers. and now orbin is stabbing putin. open borders, no visa req. young pussy russian men will escape and go doing queer shows
russia coming with guns????? guess russia placed their nation too close to the nato bases. the ones encircling russia, despite promises made, not to move an inch into eastern europe.
get lost with your transparent alisky for rules for radicals play book sonny its old school and transparent your attempts at passive aggressive are laughable.
shit, you trying to be your own psychologist again? no one listens to you, obvioysly talking to yourself, and for once you offer yourself good advice…maybe you should take it.
obviously u just raised your head. here. i am so lonely here in siberia that i am listening u rather than melting permafrost and oil pipes bending broken siberia drowning on crude oil. only doing is visiting outside and say hello to coat which u have dressed nicely, looking like your mother. mum…i feel randy, not my dog randy but u know ….but then u get zombi virus from old dinosaurus sceleton.
they have really nice big nazi rallies every year. really nice people.
go back to moscow and lick putin’s the one and only testicle. then he shoot u and your skinny family.
“however, restricting maritime shipping the way they intend to do cannot be described as anything else than a violation of the 1982 un convention on the law of the sea – with potential serious consequences.”
not happening. kaliningrad makes for a nice nuclear armed detterent for any such western delusions.
there’s only one authority for rule of the sea and that’s the king of the holy see the pope the only religious leader given a free permanent seat at the un.
so nato wants to install a new artificial reef using their baltic fleet and the help of khinzal pizza… sounds great, this is the strategy you get from the green party retards at nato…
khinzal is a joke. not for those arkhangelsk families which lost their fathers in that explosion.
it is a pitty that u dont have good tools, binoculars and sufficient amount of light they can work properly.
destroying the western military in syria and/ or ukraine could have deterred them. defeating ukraine fast could have deterred them. now they have persuaded themselves that no matter what they do russia wont do anything to nato or isreal and thats how they behave. now they will either win by a 1000 cuts or be shocked if putin uses nukes one day cause they diddnt antizipate it.
let us not forget that finland was an axis power during the great patriotic war ( i use the term ‘power’ loosely). they are still nasties at heart.
not to mention the many nazis in the three baltic dwarf states. 46 years of denazification proved too short to finish the job.
to get rid of the nazi problem, you have to debank/decapitate the zionist countetfiet central banking problem…
and while we are at it the total population of estonia is around 1.5 million – the russian army has more servicemen that that on active duty. expect the defeat of estonia to take all of 30 seconds…..
it seems most russian men are pussies like you. keyboard jihadists too scared to go to ukraine and hoping to fight smallest country possible. grow some hair on your balls and go to give your life for russia. even if it was estonia you would be the same pussy you are now. and you will always be a pussy.
well off you go granny run over and volunteer dear.
i am not russian and my country is not in war. if russia attacked finland, i would be the first one blowing up russian tanks on the border and shelling petersburg.
why would russia attack finland? finland appears to be the aggressor, if anybody is looking for a fight.
…you are not a russian? 😆
there is no war in your country? 😆
you want to shoot at st. petersburg? 😆
you’ve been stupid since your ex soviets, sorry… 🤡🤡🤡
when you meet your mom, tell her to slap you once for me. i would be ashamed to be in my home while others are fighting and dying for my country. you have no honor, no dignity, no balls. totally useless person.
is it compulsory for nafo trolls to be of limited intelligence?
yes and no england s worst nightmare would be tor russia to have the bay of riga, the best bay on the entire western front, or even estonia as a naval air port into an attack directly on them. the baltuc states know how valuable they are to the united kingdoms future
i am from finland. i would prefer you would come direct at us. i do not want to take a swim to fight you. the bottom line is. if your russian man and not in ukraine, you are total pussy. if at stalin days men were like you, you would be all slaves of hitler now. i do not understand how can you live with yourself?
you do know that stalin was actually georgian and the bolsheviks (who are now controlling finland, eu, us and uk) overthrew the russian empire, back in 1917? the soviet union fell in 1991. with regards ukraine, did you have any problems when they were taking out the russian speaking citizens of ukraine, post 2014?
ukraine doing in ukraine to russians less than what russia has done to tatars, chechnyans, finns and most minorities for hundreds of years is not an excuse for war.
so what have russians done to tatars? the georgian bolshevik stalin, owing to them aiding adolf, threw most of them out of crimea. krushchev, another bolshevik (remember the bolshevik-nazi coalition now run the eu, including finland, uk and us), took crimea from russia and handed it to ukraine, but what did he do for the tatars?
2) what did ukraine do for the tatars, when the bolshevik soviet union, fell in 1991? remember, the tatars when crimea was under the control of ukraine, did not have electricity or water that was mains supplied, now did they. what was the first thing russia did for the tatars, when crimea voted to go home to russia?
3) they made tatar one of the three official languages and allowed the tatars to own their own property, recognising them as human beings, unlike ukraine.
how is doing the 3 days war half brainer ?russians dont play with west or they will burn
the baltic poodles have lost a third of their populations and all their industry since independence. they are run by dual nationals parachuted in by washington who just want to poke the bear to please their us masters. finland will share the same fate hosting 17 us bases and us nuclear weapons. finland used to benefit immensely from trade with russia, entrepot trade and tourism. those days are now gone. get used to closed militarised borders.
baltic shills will do anything to expand war with russia using the rest of nato. my view is better be careful nato will hang you out to dry.
correct just as the handed them over to communism in ww1 and again in ww2. but they put their puppets into the bureaucracies, it’s never about the people of anywhere, it’s all about their bureau drawers
3 seas initiative – baltic, adriatic and black sea, are so envious of russia and her energy resources. now what nations make up the ‘bolshevik 3 seas initiative’? austria, bulgaria, croatia, czech republic, estonia, hungary, latvia, lithuania, poland, romania, slovakia, slovenia, greece. ukraine and moldova are participants of an initiative set up by the atlantic council, back in 2014. how many of those nations are creditor nations and how many are debtor nations?
a naval blockade with khnizal pizza bait? sounds like fun… literally what was just destroyed in kursk, is about equivalent to what sits in those 3 mouthy zionazi co-oped balkin states…. a russian invasion would prolly take a few months top, and the shit talkers capitulate…
exactly. the uk s whole security depends on the baltic states being anti russia
anti free russia that is or incorporated into enslaved russia.
the article could not give a single finnish politician as a source for finland closing shipping routes to russia. also it has not been mentioned in any finnish news. means it is not true. finland is however going to build major nato base to joensuu, about 100 km from russian border. that one is true, not mentioned in the news.
you’re contradicting yourself. first you say because something can’t be true because it was not mentioned in the news. then you mention the base not being in the news, but still being true.
life’s like that, contrary that is reality that’s how they play the game.
if finland were to close gulf of finland from russia, they would inform finnish public about it. your news is false. any closing of gulf of finland would need parliamentary proceedings and plans to enforce it months beforehand. no finnish politician, or newspaper has mentioned it. this news is total garbage.
that’s right. it’s easy to bribe little countries representatives
we are not russians. we do not take bribes.
they have threatened to close the baltic and attack kaliningrad. strange how some people are determined to commit suicide to please uncle sam.
source? give me one finnish source for your claims.
pls. define them and provide even one source to support your ridiculous claim.
i know u r that poor u dont have all keyboard buttons but come on. u should do better still. u r the worst agitator by far. i hope they dont pay for u. if they did last thing they pay 4 u is a cattle train ticket to siberia, lng arc2 to check empty lng pipelines.
my my how perceptive. goodness gracious what a big surprise.
many 7 year olds post at sf—amerikan ship w munitions obliterated yesterday black sea—nato is weak divided talibanned irrelevant–nato is amerikan imperialism—nations w zero sovereignty—quack like a duck —32 sheep cannot challenge russian wolf
i think you mean russian allies are irrelevant? russia wants to have land from northern kazakhstan, armenia wants to ally with eu, azerbaijan will never forget how russia helped genocide against them 1991-1995. most of your allies sold russian tanks and planes to ukraine. your only real allies are belarus and north korea.
when is the brics summit? 80% of the planet are friends with russia. then you have the bolshevik-nazi coalition of the west, that owns 80% of world debt, against russia. funny that.
only nazi is russia ; try to be a jew, black, gay, minority language people in russia. no. u cannot. there r even laws to make these people life a living hell. stalin killed russians several millions. and still 70% of russian people consider he is a super star. why. because kremlin wrote history books again. now this country is run by old granpa dictator who wrecked his sotshi-palace. russian army cannot even protect one building. lol
how can russia be nazi? remember, the battle of stalingrad and how it sent what was left of the nazis, back to berlin? does russia have a national holiday, to honour a famous nazi, who was behind events in volhynia? stalin was georgian and the leader of the bolshevik soviet union, was he not?
2) remember, the bolsheviks overthrew the russian empire back in 1917 and it fell in 1991? russian army cannot protect one building, yet they are protecting the territory that was once ukrainian and has returned to russia? have they not? remind me, is there any gene pool left in ukraine?
almost all of asia, africa and latin america is pro russia , so kill yourself pekka
not one african, or asian nation is really an ally to russia. security cooperation in niger and mali. good luck getting reinforcements from there in case of any war with nato. i could say, 98% of the world are friends with finland but they are not all our allies.
however, not much of the world is interested in partnerships with finland, unlike russia.
seems like every time nato comes up with a plan to exicute against the good christian and muslim people of russia, it turns out to be another episode of nato playing russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver…
there r no worries if revolver or bullets are russian. or from their ally north korea. how low can u go? russia so big country but cannot make guns and bullets by themselves and needs to trust n korean versions.
luckily russia is fading away. no children are born. young men are dieing and old man cannot have hard tool with russian make up ladies with cheap artificial fur clothing.
keep getting your info from cnn. in the meantime, how many toys have nato got left? why can’t they keep up with russian weapons, if russia is in such a poor way? russia, 4th largest economy, in full control of her vast wealth of natural resources and over $620 billion in currency and gold reserves.
what russia can learn from idf/mossad: eliminate all the heads of the enemy organization by decapitating the the top management, just like idf made with the hezbollah. russia should do the same with the head of afu and gur. but even better: do it simultaneously and in a surprise strike. and the conflict is over in the next day.
time to denazify the baltic chihuahuas? now russia knows at what point nato is weak
west has known russian weeknesses for hundred years. the democracy is artificial . it has been such for long time. people are voting and r so stupid they thinks voting was not manipulates. dispite dead people are voting , at some areas over 100% were voting, other candidates are leaving the race or thrown to jail. i fully understand it pisses off. but russian people who wrotes these provocative content gets paid by fsb and very many works at st petersburg troll factory.
you talking about the us elections? remind me, how is democracy going in ukraine? why has their dictator banned elections? refused to step down when his term ended? kills and imprisons any oposition, whether media, civilians or politicians.
yeah buddy, if you live in the uk i suggest you to learn how to swim very fast and buy a boat too, because the destruction will come soon and suddenly. and don’t blame on me on that- don’t tell me that i am very aggressive: go complain to your leadership, go complain to those who receive your tax pounds, go complain to those who are arming the n*zis in kiev
there is no mentioning of a blockade in the linked article. i cannot find anything online that corroborates the intention to block the gulf of finland.
lol russia playing with nato ?the are nazis invaders but they are not stipid , with nato on the ground the orcs already been ar moscow
you wankers cant even beat the talis now you want beat russia lol sarmat on you pekka
what big war did you won without west help ?none tard, none half brainer
why are so many nato forces on vacation in ukraine and going home in body bags?
spiderwoman in a teenager who lives in the basement of her mother’s house. congratulations spider punk
i’m telling you, this were all pre-planned in advance. the westerners wanted to enslave and conquer russia by all costs. why findland and sweden two neutral countries were forced by the enslaved and bribed governments to join nato. this is a multilayer contention approach to take on russia by all means, enslave the population, they will put the “head of the snake” in moscow and plunge all russia resources for eternity.
the same with china, they have a multi layer approach of contention to weaken china by all means, while they are infiltrating the westerner head of the snake institution and religion to try to ingress into chinese culture. never open the door for a westerner, they will preach the love of christianity but while you sleep they will stab you in the back.
leave the drugs tard ,a chicken has more brain than you …that kind of speach is for mental retards those like you that love to eat icecream with the forehead , that speach is only for the mental retarded…grow up idiot
really, my nickname is spiderman, and you have hundred of thousands of ukrainians dead just because usa empire doesn’t understand that should not go to the east… in which language i will talk to you… don’t go to the east… don’t try to expand the western virus to mankind and pretend to be exceptionals while you grab land and resources worldwide just to expand your empire of snakes. ask the iroquois what happened to them? spiderman right?
our cheeky finnish chums poked the bear a couple of times before and it didn’t work out too well for them. some people never learn. maybe lenin should never have recognised finland in the first place after ww1. or just occupied the place permanently in 1944.
the world has you see today is the sum of all historic forces, maybe finland were recognized because russia was not strong enough to make their point enter the european dream at that point of time, british empire success was the findland recognition. lenin was a visionary but he failed to understand the human nature and how the culture and religion and propaganda shapes the mind of the western civilization.