Finland's foreign minister: Diplomacy with Russia has failed

DW (English)

DW spoke with Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen at the UN General Assembly in New York about Russia's incursion into NATO airspace. "When dealing with an imperialist power like Russia, diplomacy hardly helps," Valtonen said.

Transcript

00:00Finnish Foreign Minister Voltonen, thank you so much for talking to us.

00:04I would like to get your reaction to what the Russian Foreign Minister said at the G20

00:09Foreign Minister's meeting here.

00:10I quote him through Ukraine, NATO and the EU have declared war on Russia and are directly

00:14participating in it.

00:16What's your reaction?

00:17Well, that's utterly false, of course.

00:19Well, first of all, it is Russia who has been waging war against Ukraine since 2014.

00:26And the full scale invasion started three and a half years ago.

00:30And also concretely, the world knows that President Zelensky, Ukraine has been ready for a ceasefire,

00:36has been ready for negotiations.

00:38But on the very contrary, what does Russia?

00:41Well, not only do they continue their fight on the battlefield, but they have been specifically

00:49targeting civilians with drone attacks and with missile attacks.

00:55really increasing the pressure on the entire Ukrainian society, deporting children, which

01:02is a massive war crime, of course.

01:06So we know who is guilty.

01:08And at the same time, Russia unfortunately seems to be waging a hybrid war also against the rest

01:15of the world and not only in Europe.

01:18Here, I've been speaking to quite so many African colleagues of mine and everybody's worried

01:24about Russia's actions in Sahel, in Western Africa, where they are not only supporting military

01:30coups, but also spreading misinformation, disinformation to destabilize societies.

01:37We've seen Russian drones in Polish airspace, Russian jets violating Estonian airspace.

01:44What does that mean for Finland, considering that you have this really long border to Russia

01:48and our direct neighbors from there?

01:50Well, I guess Finland never has had any illusions about Russia.

01:56Of course, we have also in our past tried to engage with them.

02:00At the same time, we have always been prepared for the fact that they might be a threat, not

02:05just to us, but the rest of us as well.

02:08So Finland has always invested very heavily in defense and deterrence.

02:13What we do see now is that Russia not only has the capability, but also the will to threaten, basically, every

02:22country in the world who is dedicated to offering democracy and freedom to their people.

02:30So now is really the time that the freedom-loving world sticks together and makes everything necessary

02:39for sustainable peace in Ukraine, but also for containing Russia's aggression.

02:46Ahead of this high-level week, you said international relations must be built on rules, not on brute force.

02:52We had Ukrainian President Zelenskyy addressing the UN General Assembly, saying that not only allies

02:56are important, but also weapons. Do you agree with that, as he criticized weak international

03:02organizations of not being able to end not only this war, but several conflicts around the world?

03:09Unfortunately, dealing with an imperialist power like Russia, diplomacy hardly helps.

03:16We have tried it for so many years, even though we saw increasingly that Russia, again, in the

03:26past 20 years, was attempting to become a true military threat with Georgia, with Crimea, and all this.

03:37Still, we in the West, we always gave the hand to Russia and said, let's sit down, let's try, you know, diplomacy.

03:46Nothing worked. They just kept on advancing. Unfortunately, it seems to be the case that Russia

03:52only understands military power and, of course, also looking at their economy, they won't be able

04:00to sustain this war machine for too long. Unfortunately, still for the time being, and the Russian population

04:06is deprived of all their freedoms, so they can't even vote against, right? So the economy is not going

04:13to collapse tomorrow. But of course, in the medium term already, and especially in the long term, that will be

04:19a massive problem to Russia. But anyway, diplomacy is good. But at the same time, we need to have

04:26credible, credible deterrence and defend, defense, so that we can basically force Russia to negotiate

04:33and engage in diplomacy. Finnish foreign minister, Elina Walton, and thank you so much for talking to us.

04:38Thank you so much. Thank you.

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