Howdya like that border, Vlad?
The Russian president’s imperial adventurism has not succeeded in bringing Ukraine back under Kremlin control. What it has succeeded in doing is doubling Russia’s land border with NATO. Except Finland did that for him (Washington Post):
Finland is set to formally join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Tuesday, a historic shift for a country that once insisted it was safer outside the military alliance, a dramatic rebuke to Russia and a sign of how President Vladimir Putin’s gamble in Ukraine is upending the post-Cold War order.
Finnish membership will double NATO’s land border with Russia, adding more than 800 miles. It will also bolster the alliance’s presence around the Baltic Sea and enhance its position in the Arctic.
To justify his unprovoked attack on Ukraine, Putin cited the possibility of NATO expansion. Now, his war has brought a bigger, stronger NATO to his door.
Whoops.
Putin was this close to gutting NATO when his bootlickin’ apologist occupied the Oval Office. Helsinki was not a NATO member — making it neutral territory — when the two met there in 2018. The world watched an American president suck up to the Russian autocrat. The display was “such an unbelievable, indelible moment that many deflated White House officials didn’t even bother to defend or explain it,” wrote Jonathan Swan of Axios.
Putin had Trump’s number. But so did American voters by 2020. Putin misread both Ukraine’s resolve and NATO’s when he invaded Ukraine in February 2022. His invasion bogged down. Ukraine’s nimble defenders under President Volodymyr Zelenskyy surprised the world, drew NATO military aid, and gave countries too close to Russia for comfort reason to join the North Atlantic mutual defense alliance.
Finland and Sweden signed protocols with NATO in July 2022 that put them on a path to admission. Ukraine applied for NATO membership in September 2022 just “hours after Vladimir Putin said in a Kremlin ceremony that he was annexing four Ukrainian provinces,” The Guardian reported:
The alliance is unlikely to accept Ukraine’s imminent Nato entry while it is in a state of war. As a Nato member, fellow members would be compelled to actively defend it against Russia – a commitment that goes well beyond the supply of weapons.
Putin cannot afford to end Russia’s invasion or else risk facing an additional 1,200+ miles of land border with NATO should Ukraine gain later admission.
Putin’s deputy chief of staff, Vyacheslav Volodin, said in 2014, “If there is Putin, there is Russia. If there is no Putin, there is no Russia.” Thus, Putin cannot afford to lose a war Russia seems unable to win. Putin, “czar with no empire, needs military victory for his own survival.”
Finland’s admission to NATO just made Putin’s political position that much worse.