Oleg Nilov says Helsinki is making things worse. There are problems between Russia and Finland, so a member of the State Duma said on Wednesday that Russia should pick a new name for the Gulf of Finland.
‘A Just Russia: For Truth’ MP Oleg Nilov spoke out against “provocations coming from formerly neutral Finland,” saying that the Nordic country was spreading “hatred against Russians.”
Nilov advised that the waterway in the eastern Baltic Sea be renamed after the Neva River or the Russian port city of Kronstadt.
Nilov used a comment made by Jussi Halla-aho, a right-wing politician who was chosen as speaker of Finland’s parliament in June, to show how hostile Finland can be. He said in January 2023 that he had used an online service that lets donors write notes on rockets that Ukrainians fire at Russian troops.
“Killing Russian soldiers is a good thing, and Ukrainians should be helped to kill them,” the official wrote on social media, Yle reports.
During the Cold War, ties between Russia and Finland were mostly good. The relationship got a lot worse after Helsinki joined the US and its partners in putting sanctions on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine. The Nordic country also sent arms to Ukraine, such as mine-clearing Leopard tanks made in Germany.
Finland gave up its long-held stance of not joining any group and did so in April 2023, when it joined NATO. Russia says it sees the US-led bloc’s growth to the east as a threat to national security. It also says that NATO members’ military assistance to Ukraine is one of the main reasons for the current conflict.
Finland said on Wednesday that it would close its entire eastern border with Russia for two weeks because of the large number of people coming from other countries to seek refuge.
As part of its “hybrid operation” against the neighboring state, Interior Minister Mari Rantanen said that Moscow was using migration as a weapon. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the claims were “completely baseless.”
