Commenting on the nation’s current security situation, the new Chief of Defence and Commander of the Finnish Defence Forces, General Janne Jaakkola, said on Thursday that Russia poses no particular military threat to Finland.
“We must still be prepared for the fact that the fragile security situation will continue for a long time and we must react quickly to the changing security situation,” General Jaakkola said.
Jaakkola considered it very unlikely that Russia would test Nato’s collective defence. According to Article 5 of the Nato treaty, an attack on any member is considered an attack against them all, and member states are obliged to defend against attacks on other alliance members.
General Jaakkola stated that Finland’s national defence must now be optimised as part of Nato.
The newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported Thursday that the US Army is considering establishing a large pre-positioned weapons facility in the Nordic region. It is not yet known whether Finland is interested in in having it sited on its territory.
Finland is looking to take on the operations of a sub-headquarters for Nato ground forces and the headquarters operations of forward-deployed rotating forces.
President Sauli Niinistö appointed Jaakkola to his new post at the end of his term, earlier this year. Jaakkola replaced outgoing FDF Chief General Timo Kivinen at the beginning of this month.
Jaakkola has most recently served as Chief of Strategy of the Defence Forces and previously as Chief of Planning and Chief of Logistics at the General Staff. The post of Commander of the Defence Forces is a five-year appointment.
