I don’t know that the security situation of world leaders is publicized for obvious reasons but I swear I read somewhere that many of them go out and about all the time without any kind of security and that the secret service is really an American thing. It’s probably because there are like 5 guns for every man woman and child in this country.
I’m trying to imagine Putin wandering around in public without security.
Secret Service is a level of security that not a lot of countries can duplicate. So, Secret Service being an American thing is probably true with some exceptions. But if we’re just talking security (even just a bodyguard), I’d be shocked if the top guy or woman in every country didn’t have some security person pretty close when they’re out in public.
There is continuing talk about Finland joining NATO, fwiw.
In normal countries where people don’t jerk off about 3am phone calls to drop bombs somewhere, what the Finland PM did is perfectly fine
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If Putin invades Finland, I’m pretty sure their plan is just get drunk as fuck so in a way she’d be on top of the situation.
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Yeah I wasn’t talking about dictators, my recollection was it was the heads of democracies.
Putin doesn’t seem to have the same hard-on for Finland he does for Ukraine so partying pm is probably fine.
Maybe he figures hassling Ukraine makes the Finns think twice.
Probably not in the mood for Winter War 2: Karelian Boogaloo
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TIL Finland is not in NATO.
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I don’t think any NATO countries border Russia. Russia really wouldn’t like that, and it’s why they are thinking about conquering Ukraine rather than let them go to NATO.
estonia and latvia tho.
and norway. russians don’t have any discovered checks over norway evidently.
eta: ukraine and georgia are pretty close to nato. if not members, they are becoming major allies or something like that.
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she’s no brezhnev or yeltsin.
Also Lithuania and Poland thanks to Russia’s exclave! Didn’t realize Norway touched Russia, and didn’t realize that the Baltics were in NATO. Forgot about the exclave when forgetting that Poland bordered Russia.
The Baltics were annexed by the USSR in 1940 and were forced to become constituent republics of the Soviet Union. The West never recognised this annexation. The Bolsheviks seized power in Ukraine in 1919, so more or less as part of the Russian Revolution, and most of Ukraine had been part of the Russian Empire since the time of Catherine the Great, as had Georgia. So both Ukraine and Georgia are considered “Russian territory” by Russian nationalists in a way that Poland, Norway and the Baltics are not.
Who knows how far Putin is really prepared to go, but attacking Ukraine might provoke Finland into signing up. The door’s been open for a while.
finland is far better prepared for defense than ukraine was prior to 2014, and moreover their terrain is basically impenetrable for a fast invasion, even for russian numerous tank battalions. a naval campaign is so close to st. petersburg and the rest of european fleets, it’s basically impossible for russia to pull off b
there’s the other aspect of finnish population not being subjected to russian propaganda and misinformation attacks, which were both parts of georgia and ukraine conflicts. those attacks were relatively novel at the time, and the attacked communications were comparatively behind developed europe.
Thanks. I gathered some of that from LouisCyphre’s post along with a quick look at the Winter War wiki entry.
So it would be better, from Putin’s pov, not to have to threaten, much less actually take, military action against Finland to prevent them from joining NATO. If his actions against Ukraine increase the probability Finland (and also the other NATO-adjacent nations people have mentioned) joins NATO, he has to take that into account before pulling the trigger. Ofc, we don’t really know how he values the various possible outcomes.
I didn’t realize until recently that we were supplying Ukraine lethal aid, even if mostly limited to small arms and training. Seems like you don’t have to be in a Russian tank for this to raise some eyebrows:
The assistance included lethal elements, such as Javelin anti-tank missiles
WHAT??? This can’t be right.
The characteristic speech impediments of Scooby and Astro are so similar that Astro’s signature phrase, “Ruh-roh!”, is popularly and improperly attributed to Scooby
Being in a small country like that is great. When I was in Iceland they told me you can book a private chat with the Prime Minister. Like OK there’s a bit of a wait and probably a screening but you can go and have a bit of a bitch to the PM about what’s on your mind.
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