Adam O’Neal
WSJ, June 12, 2022
“In late November, or early December, we heard Russians also saying that NATO must not or should not take any more new members. Well, that led to an odd situation.”
Finnish President Sauli Niinistö called Vladimir Putin on May 14 to let him know that Finland was applying to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Kremlin had threatened Helsinki over its prospective application but later played down the news. “Putin was very calm and cool,” Mr. Niinistö says during an interview at the presidential palace last week. “If a Russian is angry, yes, be careful. But if he’s calm, be even more careful.”
Like most every other Finn I spoke with, the president is a student of his country’s long and violent history with Russia. But he also has the advantage of having spoken with Mr. Putin countless times since taking office a decade ago. This has brought him as much insight into the dictator’s mind as any Western leader in power has today.
“Not giving that information straight to Putin, or straight to Russia, I understand that would have been something like sneaking away around the corner,” he says of the NATO application. “That’s not the Finnish way.” He recalls that Mr. Putin simply told him Moscow doesn’t pose a threat and “you made a mistake.”
Mr. O’Neal is a Europe-based editorial page writer for the Journal.
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