Putin After Finland Joined NATO, And Again Shut Down Border With Russia: We Didn't Have A Problem With Finland Before, Now We Do

Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden had said "If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there,” and added that if successful, Russia would attack countries belonging to the NATO alliance.

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin told Russian state media that although Russia didn't have problems with Finland before the West "dragged Finland into NATO", now that Finland is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), there will now be problems with them, adding that in light of this new development, Russia will be establishing a military district in Leningrad, in north-west Russia. 

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"They [the West] dragged Finland into NATO. Did we have any disputes with them? All disputes, including territorial ones in the mid-20th century, have long been solved," he stated in a video interview. 

"There were no problems there, now there will be, because we will create the Leningrad military district and concentrate a certain amount of military units there," he added during the interview. 

Putin also said that although he had assumed that the West would “establish productive relations with Russia”, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said that he now realizes that he was wrong, and claimed that the West intends to break Russia apart.

Russian state news Agency RT cited Putin as saying, “After the collapse of the Soviet Union they thought they just had to wait a little longer, and then they would break Russia apart as well”.

“It would be better, as suggested by… [former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew] Brzezinski, to divide it into five parts, and subjugate them one by one,” Putin stated.

He said that a group of smaller states “would have no weight or voice of their own, and would have no chance to defend their national interests in the way that the united Russian state has”.

Finland Shuts Down Its Border With Russia Again