Western countries should beef up defenses as Ukraine conflict persists, Prime Minister Sanna Marin has suggested
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomes Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin in Sydney, on December 2, 2022. © Saeed KHAN / AFP
European countries would be in a dangerous place now if it were not for the role the US is playing in the Ukraine conflict, Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin claimed on Friday. She also urged Helsinki’s allies to ramp up efforts to build defense capabilities.
Speaking during a visit to Australia, the Finnish premier indicated that Europe is not well-placed to handle the current crisis alone. “I’ll be brutally honest with you, Europe isn’t strong enough. We would be in trouble without the United States involving [itself] in the war of Ukraine,” she said, pointing to the massive assistance Washington has been providing to Kiev.
According to Marin, Europe should do its best to become stronger: “We have to make sure we are also building those capabilities when it comes to European defense and the European defense industry.”
She also noted that Russia’s military operation in Ukraine had changed Helsinki’s political calculus “overnight.” In May, Finland and its Nordic neighbor Sweden submitted applications to join NATO. While the bloc indulged this request, the two countries’ bid has yet to be ratified by all its 30 members.
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The US-led alliance has repeatedly said that, while it is supporting Ukraine militarily, it is not party to the conflict. On Thursday, however, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Washington and NATO of directly participating in the standoff.
He also said that Moscow doesn’t need the type of security architecture that Western countries are trying to build without Russia and Belarus. “European security now boils down to being fully submissive to the US,” Lavrov added.
The minister went on to recall that, while in recent years France and Germany sought independence from American military protection, the US is determined to make NATO indispensable and wants to pit other European nations against Russia.
