Why Russia will never attack the NATO country Finland or the Baltic states - minor story in obscure corner of Russian media TASS magnified by the ISW and briefly mentioned by Sky news - MID EDIT
This an obscure story only briefly mentioned in one Sky News update about Russia threatening Finland. There is no way they'd attack Finland in reality. Ever and especially now it’s in NATO.
The ISW do accurately report their sources. But this is
magnifying a minute story that even TASS didn't think was interesting enough to run in its English language section
a one paragraph story in the Russian language part of TASS
Nobody else ran it except Sky News in one of its updates.
I thought about adding it to my 1960s update yesterday, but it was such a minor story and their reasoning was very sketchy and based on such slender material.
However got a few more asking about it today so here is my debunk.
First, there is no way NATO invades Finland in reality. There is no way that Putin attacks any NATO country
The ISW here is just saying that Russia is
making the same claims about Finland and about the Baltic states that it makes about Ukraine.
That because they have a large population of Russian speakers they should be part of Russia - that is essentially the reasoning
That is hardly surprising.
Russia has been making these same claims for many years now since long before the war started.
For instance it makes the same claims about the Baltic states - but it invaded Ukraine not Estonia. Even though Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia don’t have a single fighter jet or bomber or tank or infantry fighting vehicle of their own between them
This shows what a big difference it makes to the safety of a country to be member of NATO. It is why Ukraine wants to join NATO too
with Ukraine it did far more than make those claims.
There aren't even any preparations such as exercises outside the borders of Finland. The opposite.
Russia long ago withdrew its soldiers from the border between Russia and NATO to fight in the war.
Now that Finland is part of NATO, Russia needs to fortify its borders with Finland similarly to its borders with Norway and the Baltic states. But so far though it did some building it hasn't moved any military equipment or soldiers there.
There is no way that NATO would attack Russia as it is a purely defensive organization and never attacks anyone. Its member states can independently decide to attack e.g. when the US invaded Afghanistan and many countries together fighting ISIS in Syria - but that is not as part of NATO. It's done in other ways.
But Finland won't independently attack NATO either. That makes no sense. There is territory in Russia that Finland claims called Karelia which Russia took from Finland but Finland has agreed with Russia not to try to take it back again.
When Finland joined NATO, Putin said that they have no border disputes with Finland, they were resolved long ago. But he also said that if Finland deploys troops to its borders, Russia will respond in mirror fashion.
QUOTE STARTS
"We do not have such problems with Sweden and Finland, which, unfortunately, we have with Ukraine. We have no territorial issues… no disputes… we have nothing that could bother us from the point of view of Finland's or Sweden's membership in NATO.
"Only they should plainly and clearly realize that there were no threats before, now, if military contingents and infrastructure are deployed there, we will have to respond in a mirror manner and create the same threats to the territories from which threats are created to us,"
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukraine-war/putin-explains-how-finland-sweden-membership-in-nato-different-from-ukraines/2627019
That does NOT mean that either side would attack the other.
Naturally NATO WILL defend its border along Finland with Russia once the war is over and Russia starts to build up its forces on the Russian side of the border,
You can expect both sides to defend the border much as they do everywhere else.
So far, Russia built some structures on the border with Finland that may in the future be used to support its own soldiers but it can't spare any soldiers from the war yet or tanks or anything maybe some token ones that's all.
It is true that once the war is over Russia will likely deploy some of its army along the Finnish border. But not with any realistic prospect of invading it.
Finland is part of NATO only because Russia threatened it. Threats like this can be guaranteed to keep Finland in NATO
As a NATO member Russia can't invade it. And these threats can be guaranteed to keep Finland in NATO and are an example of how Russia often acts in ways that achieve the opposite of what it wants.
It is very difficult to invade Finland because it is so wet, so many lakes, covered in snow in winter, wet in summer. Russia had lots of problems when it tried to invade it. It would be far harder with a modern drone patrolled border. You can be sure that when the war ends that NATO will patrol its entire borders with drones just like Ukraine does - and that will mean no tank or armoured vehicle, and with enough drones not even a single soldier can cross without being spotted.
The wet conditions in Finland will be no obstacle to drones.
And of course if Russia builds up an invading force outside Finland - which takes weeks to do - NATO has its 300,000 allied response force to build up on the Finnish side too.
It's not practical as an idea.
What the Baltic states and Finland have is:
they are all part of NATO
Have thousands of NATO soldiers stationed there
regular air patrols from an air field in LIthuania
many tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, fighter jets, bombers from NATO
For that reason Putin decided to invade Ukraine instead of the Baltic states.
If the Baltic states were not part of NATO they would be the obvious soft target.
I've found this story on ~Sky News https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-latest-poland-nato-russia-trump-putin-zelenskyy-live-moscow-kremlin-12541713?postid=10203002#liveblog-body
But it took a lot of searching.
I don't have Sky News on the list I search every day because it tends to sensationalize things and if anything is genuinely of interest one of the sites I search every day would have it.
Even the Associated Press doesns't have it on its front page and scrolling down its recent news section on the left there is no mention of the word "Finland"
https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
It's not on in the English language edition of Tass either as far as I can tell.
https://tass.ru/politika/25094733
I eventually found it as a very small item in the Russian version of TASS by following the links from the ISW report.
https://tass.ru/politika/25094733
It's hardly much of an informational campaign when it's not even being run prominently in TASS but is briefly touched on in one statement by Lavrov - who often says extraordinary things.
This is only 3 hours ago so I hadn't read the latest ISW update either which it cites.
But if I had this wouldn't have leapt out as a major story.
In the same IW report it says that Russia is making very slow advances in Ukraine and is losing so much and its economy is suffering and quotes Trump without comment itself saying that if the prices of oil came down then Russia according to the ISW would have to stop fighting.
QUOTE STARTS
ISW continues to assess that a Russian victory is not inevitable, however, and that Ukraine and the West can leverage several key Russian weaknesses to force Putin to change his calculus and engage in good-faith negotiations. Russian gains on the battlefield have come at a high cost, with Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi reporting on September 9 that Russian forces have suffered 299,210 casualties killed and wounded in action since January 2025 alone.[5] Russian forces have been advancing at a creeping foot pace throughout 2025, and Russia’s casualty rates have been disproportionately high compared to the amount of territory seized. Putin has also mismanaged Russia’s economy throughout the war, resulting in increased and unsustainable wartime spending, growing inflation, and significant labor shortages.[6] Putin’s focus on defense spending and the buildup of Russia’s defense industrial base (DIB) has notably come at the expense of the civilian economic sectors. Russia’s ability to fund its war machine is in part reliant on Russian oil exports, which fund a significant portion of Russia’s federal revenues.[7] US President Donald Trump noted these Russian weaknesses, stating on September 18 that Russia is incurring more losses in the war than Ukraine and that Putin will have to “drop out” of the war should oil prices come down.[8]
This would certainly not appear in the news in 1960s levels of detail.
I don't understand why the ISW would devote a paragraph of text today to such a very obscure story - that barely runs even in TASS.
Anyway there is absolutely no risk to NATO from Russia invading Finland.
The weakest point in NATO isn’t Finland which would be very hard to invade.
NATO’s weakest points are usually given as the Baltic states, Estonia or Lithuania. Especially the Suwalki gap in Lithunaia and the city of Narva in Estonia.
But there is no way that Russia can invade those either.