"But the Finnish position is clear: We are not right now sending any troops and not willing to discuss that.”
This is why you read the articles, folks.
And that is why I don’t like this narrative about NATO-country troops in Ukraine started by Macron. The topic of discussion is unrealistic and doesn’t help Ukraine at all right now. The only thing it does is taking away attention from more sensible means of supporting Ukraine, such as sending more artillery munition or giving Ukraine the capability to hit the Kerch Bridge.
But is lack of attention really the problem hindering artillery munition or long range missiles? To me the issues with artillery shells seems to be simply lack of manufacturing capabilities and for Taurus (the system most likely able to take down the bridge) lack of attention certainly isn’t an issue either, quite the opposite it couldn’t be more prominent in the media.
I personally think it is correct to not rule out troops and do so publicly, regardless of whether or not it ends up actually getting acted upon. If anything it moves the goalposts in public perception of what is acceptable/an escalation, which is good in my books. And concerning Russia’s thoughts on the matter I don’t think we should care. They aren’t rational actors and we don’t have influence on how they interpret things, so might aswell ignore their opinions.
“It’s important that we not rule everything out for the long term, because we never know how serious the situation becomes,” Valtonen said in an interview this morning. “But the Finnish position is clear: We are not right now sending any troops and not willing to discuss that.”
The full quote has a bit more insight about the matter. But the mesage stands, as of now Finnish troops aren’t going to Ukraine and as long as things say relatively the same it’s not on the table. And as a finn, in my opinion that’s the correct way to manage this right now. We couldn’t send any meaningful amount of troops there and even if we did, what would they do there? Even a battalion wouldn’t change that much in the scope of whole war and Ukraine would have a ton of troops on their hands to find something reasonable to do, set up command chains, plan logistics (even if our troops would bring their own support) and so on. The whole thing would be far more complex than just a phone call from Finland that we’re coming to this and that city and help you from there.
And I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t even be legally possible right now in the first place. Secondly that would be pretty much a diplomatic nightmare, not just with Russia (not that it really matters), but with the rest of Europe too. If the whole thing escalates to nato vs russia war then the situation is of course different, but I sincerely hope we can avoid that.
What Ukraine needs right now is a shit ton of artillery ammunitions and with that we can (and will) do our part. The biggest ammunition manufaturer here was on the news that they increase their production 5 times and if funding from around Europe is secured they’re planning to double that. And even that’s not enoguh, Europe as a whole needs to get their shit together and fast.
Kudos to the new Finnish administration for strengthening their position. Hopefully this trend will continue.
And shame on the Putinite vassals in the US House of Representatives and their vassal leader Trump for depriving the Ukrainians of both materiel and moral support.
Biden explicitly ruled out sending US troops on the ground. That’s not a Trump-driven position.
Now, that phrase may be important – there may have been F-35s that have flown through the area, as we know that there have been a lot of air tankers flying ovals by the border refueling something, and a photo from a tanker of an F-35s in stealth configuration being refueled was geolocated to Poland, just across the border. But if so, they aren’t shooting, just using sensors to gather information.
I’m free.
Let’s go already.
