“The Russians were dissatisfied and displeased, to put it that way.”
Jari Vilén is the top diplomat that leads Finland’s presidency in the Barents Council, the body that normally includes the Nordic countries and Russia. Few days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he called the Russian Foreign Ministry and announced that Russia was dismissed from the club. It was a question of trust, Vilén explains. “Cooperation is based on values and on trust. And there is no trust today.”
The announcement outraged Moscow. “In their narrative, there is no meaning with this cooperation if they are not part of it,” Vilén explains.
But the Finnish diplomat and his Nordic colleagues see it differently. They now continue cooperation within the same structures, but without the Russians.
“Immediately after the start of the war and the suspension of Russia, we decided that we would keep the structures that have been built over the last 30 years. Hopefully, they can survive and be utilized in the years, even decades, ahead,” Vilén says to the Barents Observer. Läs artikel