Page 124 - Neutrality News Today

After 70 years of neutrality. do you think putin changed? >> i think putin has always been the same man. what hes doing right now is responding to things that he sees as threats to his own security, threats to his own personnel safety. he is a dictator hes been around for 22 years. hes stolen enormous amounts of money. the russian people are angry with him, and he has watched dictators in other neighboring countries in kazakhstan and belarus -- in kazakhstan the dictator was overthrown, in belar...

This seems full frontal reckless as carl bildt was saying, it has changed finnish foreign policy after 70 years of neutrality. do you think putin changed? >> i think putin has always been the same man. what hes doing right now is responding to things that he sees as threats to his own security, threats to his own personal safety. he is a dictator who has been around for 22 years. hes stolen enormous amounts of money. the russian people are angry with him, and he has watched dictators in other ne...

You will see a process in both of the countries during the next few weeks that will lead to formal application before the nato summit in madrid at the end of june. thats what i would say. >> finland, as you say, is the most -- its the most exposed -- its in some ways the most unlikely because finland has maintained neutrality, you know, even during the height of the cold war. they fought a bloody war with the soviet union during world war ii, maintained their independence even though they lost, ...

Speaker call for the ukraine to recognise crimea but also called for ukraine to withdraw, accept neutrality and demilitarise, basically move all heavy weaponry from the country. as long as the russians are setting out those terms and the atrocities are continuing, it is very hard to see any further dialogue. it is very hard to see any further dialouue. , ,, it is very hard to see any further dialouue. , , , ., , ., dialogue. despite warnings from the ma or of dialogue. despite warnings from the ...

Sweden to join nato. but because theyre seeing the russian aggression theyre wanting to expedite it. how likely is that, and what does that mean for russia and putin in this whole transition if that comes fruition? >> i want to be clear. the world changed on february the 24th, when russia invaded ukraine. you have sweden, finland, they were already very strong nato partners. and this was a consequence of the 2014 illegal annexation of crimea and russias first invasion of donbas. but this was -- ...

Dont trust what putin is going to do, because we see what he has done in ukraine? >> its the latter. your analysis is spot on as usual, alex. put yourself in the shoes of the finns and the swedes. theyve got a long, bad history with russia. and by the way, go back to 1939, google winter war, finland, 1939. soviet tanks under stalin rolled into finland, much the same premise as we see going into ukraine, they carved out about 10% of finlands territory. they forced finland into neutrality. thats w...

Are interested in joining nato. medvedev said, it would no longer be possible to talk about non-nuclear status. how worried should we be? is there a real escalation threat here? >> i dont think so in that area. i think its a lame attempt to intimidate finland and sweden. but just the opposite is occurring. finland and sweden, for the first time in 70-some-odd years of neutrality, want to join nato. >> yeah, no, not exactly strategic brilliance by putin, if he wanted to have ukraine be allied wit...

Forces on the nato side of the border of the alliance with russia and russia saying theyre going to be sending more conventional forces to their side of the border. are we going to see a resurrection of the pre-1991 cold war europe that we thought was behind us? >> you know whats so striking is that were actually going to see a situation that potentially is even more confrontational in the sense sweden and finland never did join nato during the cold war. in fact, thats what i find so remarkable ...

A freshly released poll shows little support for a change in Ireland’s neutral stance.

Thats a fair question. unfortunately, it took us almost five to six weeks of war to prove to the west at first, we will not surrender, secondly, we are able to fight with russians, third, we have the most valuable asset, ukrainian people and the ukrainian army. i5 people and the ukrainian army. is that a negotiated position in your view when you speak to parliamentary and political colleagues where if there is going to be any peace that comes out of this where any territory at all would be given...