Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin has called for Europe to build its own defence capabilities in the wake of the war in Ukraine, saying that without US help it is not resilient enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe should make sure that we are stronger,\u201d Marin said in Sydney on Friday. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll be brutally honest with you, Europe isn\u2019t strong enough. We would be in trouble without the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her remarks came in response to a question about China\u2019s responsibility to \u201crein in Russia\u201d. Marin said that while China could play a role, \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t only rely on that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marin insisted Ukraine must be given \u201cwhatever it takes\u201d to win the war, adding that the United States had been pivotal in supplying Kyiv with the weapons, finance and humanitarian aid necessary to blunt Russia\u2019s advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have to make sure that we are also building those capabilities when it comes to European defence, the European defence industry, and making sure that we could cope in different kinds of situations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Marin said that when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, the priority of most Finns changed \u201covernight\u201d to security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until Russia invaded Ukraine, Finland\u2019s priorities were to have working bilateral relations with Russia and be close partners with members Nato, but not be a member, she said. \u201cThat was the best way to secure our nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finland and Sweden applied to join the alliance in May, but are\u00a0waiting on Turkey and Hungary to ratify their requests, which have been approved by the other 28 nations in the group. In June, Putin\u00a0warned\u00a0that if Nato installed military infrastructure in Finland and Sweden, Moscow \u201cwould be obliged to respond symmetrically and raise the same threats for those territories where threats have arisen for us\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked what the likeliest scenario was in terms of threats posed by Russia to Finland, with which it shares a 1,300km border, Marin said: \u201cWe have extensive military forces, so we\u2019re not expecting them to engage in that account and we\u2019re not seeing any military action near the Finnish border.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But of course we are prepared for different kind of hybrid attacks that we might see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are preparing for different kinds of cyber-attacks \u2026 we\u2019re preparing for different kinds of hybrid attacks, for misinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Between February and late October, cyber-attacks on \u201ccritical targets\u201d in Finlandincreased by a third, according to a recent\u00a0article\u00a0by Finnish broadcaster YLE citing Aapo Cederberg, the CEO ofCyberwatch Finland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In August, Russian hackers claimed responsibility for a denial-of-service attack on Finland\u2019s parliamentary website, as well as another Finnish state website, writing on Telegram that it had, \u201cdecided to make a \u2018friendly\u2019 visit to neighbouring Finland, whose authorities are so eager to join Nato\u201d, YLE\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In September, Antti Pelttari, the director of Supo, the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service, warned that, \u201cWe consider it highly likely that Russia will turn to the cyber environment over the winter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
October alone saw what would previously have been three months\u2019 worth of denial-of-service attacks, Trafficom, the Finnish transport and communications agency\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Concerned by the prospect of other hybrid attacks including weaponised mass migration, Finland\u2019s main political parties have backed a proposal to long parts of the country\u2019s border with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The country is also concerned about large-scale illegal crossings as Russian men flee the mobilisation drive. About 40,000 Russians have entered Finland since the start of the war, according to foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finland recently suspended tourist visas for Russian citizens. On Friday, Marin said, \u201cIt became morally unacceptable to allow the Russian middle and upper classes to continue to enjoy their vacations in Europe while their army kills, tortures and terrorises Ukrainians.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finland, which has a population of 5.5 million, still has military conscription for men, and has a wartime troop strength of 280,000, with 870,000 trained as reservists. It spend 2% of GDP on defence, a higher proportion than most Nato members. The country fought two wars against Russia in the 1940s,\u00a0in which 100,000 Finns died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur story after the wars, when we gained our independence, is a successful one,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have to make sure that Ukrainians have that hope, that they will have that future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin has called for Europe to build its own defence capabilities in the wake of the war in Ukraine, saying that without US help it is not resilient enough. \u201cWe should make sure that we are stronger,\u201d Marin said in Sydney on Friday. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll be brutally honest with you, Europe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":28154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[6850,6728,8217,5304,11394,11967,9204,4321,11555,6197,5241,9196,6621,9505,4579,9127,12354,5335,5345,3577,1237,8251,5626,6396,10321,8601,8995,5342,12309,65,5572,5340,12085,4802,11973,2627,9374,3174,6524,5646,71,3457,5217,3454,3852,6454,5655,6808,8840,1378,3346,7931,10740,2570,5180,9262,6348,6585,5251,13067,5724,3954,8964],"class_list":["post-28153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-aid","tag-alliance","tag-army","tag-attack","tag-attacks","tag-bilateral","tag-border","tag-broadcaster","tag-citizens","tag-cyber","tag-died","tag-environment","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union-eu","tag-february","tag-finance","tag-finland","tag-foreign-minister","tag-future","tag-gdp","tag-humanitarian-aid","tag-hungary","tag-hybrid","tag-illegal","tag-independence","tag-infrastructure","tag-kyiv","tag-men","tag-migration","tag-military","tag-moscow","tag-nations","tag-nato","tag-one","tag-pm","tag-population","tag-prime-minister","tag-prime-minister-sanna-marin","tag-priority","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-russian-hackers","tag-russians","tag-sanna-marin","tag-security","tag-shares","tag-strong","tag-sweden","tag-sydney","tag-territories","tag-tourist","tag-turkey","tag-ukraine","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-visas","tag-war","tag-wars","tag-weapons","tag-will","tag-winter"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52242,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28153\/revisions\/52242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}