Did Russia Demand That Finland Leave NATO? What Was Said

Has Russia demanded that Finland leave NATO? The Kremlin says no. Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, told reporters on Friday 13 November that he knew of no such demand, that none had been put forward and that it had not been discussed. What Moscow has said on the record is narrower and older: Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov said on 12 November that Russia wants NATO forces back where they stood in 1997.

Finland joined the alliance in 2023. Its defence minister, Antti Häkkänen, answered the same day. “Russia wants European NATO countries to set limits on their own operations to serve Russian interests,” he told reporters on 13 November, and he called the idea “absolutely outrageous”.

Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to journalists the same day, in remarks released on Saturday 14 November. He said Washington had raised a new security framework for Europe as part of ending the war. “In my view, this can be dangerous,” the Ukrainian president said. “I think Putin will bring up Finland and Sweden.” This follows our account of the American question on Donbas and NATO from the same remarks.

• Peskov said on 13 November that no demand for Finland to leave NATO was put forward or discussed. Ushakov said on 12 November that Russia seeks a return of the alliance’s forces to their 1997 positions.
• Zelensky said on 13 November that talks on a new European security framework “can be dangerous” and that there can be no security guarantees for Europe “without Ukraine”.
• Häkkänen called the reported demand “absolutely outrageous”. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Russia’s conditions would mean “a direct threat to Poland’s security”.
• Peskov said on 14 November of Europe’s delegation to the next round: “We cannot and do not want to set conditions.”

Putin received Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, in the Kremlin on 12 November. Ushakov’s statement on the meeting, published that evening by the Russian foreign ministry, said Putin reminded the Americans of the draft treaties Russia handed to the United States and NATO in 2021. He named three points: “non-expansion of NATO”, no deployment near Russia’s borders of “weapons systems that threaten us”, and a return of the alliance’s forces to where they stood when the Russia-NATO Founding Act was signed in 1997. Ushakov said Russia wants to add “fresh considerations”. He did not list them.

Press reports on 13 November described two Russian texts that go further. One is an unsigned paper dated 10 November, said to have been passed around at the talks in Abu Dhabi on 10 and 11 November. It is reported to ask for the withdrawal of NATO troops and bases from countries that joined after 1997, an end to Western arms for Ukraine, and a pledge by France and Britain not to use their nuclear weapons to protect other European states. The second report said an informal Russian proposal would return Finland to its status before membership and bar alliance bases in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Moscow has published neither text.

Peskov was asked about the Finland report on 13 November. He said he was not aware of it, that no such demand had been made and that the matter had not been discussed. On Saturday 14 November he was asked about Europe’s delegation. “We cannot and do not want to set conditions regarding their negotiating group,” he told a Russian journalist, in Russian. A day earlier he had said Moscow would decide on a European seat “once we see that they genuinely intend to contribute to the peace process”.

Zelensky spoke to reporters on Friday after a week in Copenhagen and Dublin. He said the American side had raised a possible new security framework for Europe. “This should not be the main agenda,” he said.

He named what he expects Moscow to ask for. “Putin’s desire to change borders in Europe is a fact,” he said. “I am sure this is part of his concept of revising security guarantees in Europe.” He went on: “I’m sure he will raise the issue of Hungary and the presence of American troops in the Baltic countries.”

“This is dangerous because, in my view, it is precisely things like this that lead to wars or escalations,” Zelensky said.

He gave his own order of business. “The sequence should be as follows: a ceasefire, an end to the war in Ukraine, and security guarantees for Ukraine,” he said. And: “There can be no security guarantees in Europe, or for Europe, without Ukraine.” On Ushakov’s first point he said: “If Putin expects Ukraine’s neutrality to be enshrined, that’s not going to happen.”

Häkkänen answered the report on Finland on the day it appeared. Limits on what European members of NATO may do “are not negotiable”, the defence minister told reporters on 13 November. Zelensky, speaking the same day, expected the subject to come up: “I think Putin will bring up Finland and Sweden.”

Tusk spoke in Dublin on Thursday 12 November, the day Ushakov’s statement appeared. “Accepting Russia’s conditions would mean a direct threat to Poland’s security,” the Polish prime minister said. “It is clear that they are unacceptable not only to Ukraine but, above all, to Europe, and certainly to countries such as Poland.” Poland joined NATO in 1999.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, told reporters at the EU summit in Dublin on 13 November: “First we need a ceasefire.” She said a debate on Europe’s security order before that would mean “we actually walk into the traps that Russia is setting us”. Of Moscow’s negotiators she said: “They don’t want anybody strong on the other side because they want to push through their maximum demands.”

Antonio Costa, the European Council president, had said in Dublin on 12 November: “Europe has consigned empires and zones of influence to the dustbin of history and we will never allow for them to come to life again.”

Trump meets Putin and Xi Jinping in Shenzhen on 19 November. The White House said on 13 November that Ukraine is not on the agenda of the three leaders’ meeting. Ushakov said Moscow will speak to Witkoff and Kushner again before then.

Costa said on 13 November that Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland will represent Europe with the EU institutions. The next three-way round has no public date. Peskov said on 13 November that it would take place “soon enough, in the foreseeable future”.

The marker is the agenda of that round. If it lists a ceasefire first, Zelensky and Kallas have held their order. If it opens with NATO and the 2021 drafts, Ushakov has held his.

Moscow has not published the paper dated 10 November or confirmed its contents. No American official has said on the record what the envoys answered when Putin raised the 2021 drafts. Ushakov has not said what Russia’s “fresh considerations” are. Zelensky did not say which American official raised the European security framework, or when.