August 21, Vladimir Putin will hold talks with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto. On the eve of the visit of the President of Finland said that one of the Central themes of the meeting will be “trends and geopolitics”, as well as the situation in Ukraine. Earlier in the press service of the Kremlin reported, the leaders can discuss the relations of both countries in the context of the European agenda, as well as a number of bilateral issues. From the point of view of experts, among other areas of discussion may be the security in the Baltic region, the Arctic partnership between Moscow and Helsinki, trade and energy issues. According to political analysts, Russia and Finland are able to maintain consistently good relationship, despite the sanctions regime between Russia and the West.

  • RIA Novosti
  • © Mikhail Klimentyev

In Helsinki on 21 August will host a meeting of presidents of Russia and Finland.

At a press conference on Tuesday, the Finnish leader Sauli Niinistö said that during the upcoming talks with Vladimir Putin are expected to discuss mainly the geopolitical situation and the Ukrainian issues.

“It is important to try to understand at the meeting that Russia thinks about the trends in the world and geopolitics. The main goal is a discussion of the geopolitical situation, the situation in Ukraine. This is particularly interesting, because I some time will meet with President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky,” said the President of Finland.

However, he stressed that pressing issues in relations between the two countries.

We will remind, earlier in a press-service of the Kremlin reported that among the topics of the upcoming dialogue between Putin and Niinisto are relations between Russia and the European Union in the light of Finland’s presidency in the EU Council. It was also noted that the two leaders intend to discuss questions of cooperation of two countries, international and regional issues.

For Vladimir Putin the visit to Finland as head of state will be the ninth. In the entire history of Russian-Finnish relations is a state is also visited by presidents Boris Yeltsin (in July 1992 and March 1997) and Dmitry Medvedev (in April 2009 and July 2010). Thus, since 1991, the Russian leaders made a trip to Finland a total of 12 times.

“Real investments”

Russia and Finland are bound by strong economic, political and cultural ties, experts say. Prior to the introduction of mutual sanctions between Moscow and the EU, Russia was a key trading partner of Finland: in 2013 the trade turnover between the countries amounted to $18 billion.

On the background of confrontation through sanctions and a cooling of relations between Russia and the West trade between the countries has slowed down. In 2014, this figure amounted to $16.1 billion, and by the end of 2015 — only $9.7 billion. However, in 2019, States managed to reverse the trend of decline in trade: at the end of last year its volume reached $14.7 billion, an increase of 19.6% compared with 2017.

  • Trucks on the Russian-Finnish border
  • AFP
  • © MIKKO STIG / Lehtikuva

As noted earlier, the Ambassador of Finland in Russia Mikko Hautala, in terms of per capita in Helsinki is the largest investor in the Russian economy. To date, investment in Russia from that state amount to about $14 billion.

“Of course, there are countries where the statistics indicate very large numbers, but here it is necessary to raise the question of how these investments are real. And we are talking about production, real investment. We are very seriously working on the Russian market, investing, and not only traded,” said the diplomat.

Experts agree with such assessments. As explained in the comments of the RT, head of sector of regional problems and conflicts of the Department of European political studies, IMEMO RAS Konstantin Voronov, the countries have interdependent economic relations.

“On the specific content of the trade there is a certain asymmetry: we supply them raw materials, energy products, and the Finns are us — manufactured goods. The only thing that could disturb the Finnish side is the possibility of increasing the export duties on supplies of Russian wood. However, the possible tightening are unlikely to affect trade with Finland,” — said the expert.

Another promising area of Finnish-Russian relations is tourism. Previously, the inhabitants of the Russian North-West are actively used simplified visa regime for frequent trips in this country. According to the statistical Agency of Finland in March this year, the Russians remained the leaders by the number of days spent in the Finnish hotels: only in January, Russian citizens spent the night in Finland 146 thousand times. In second place was the British — they stayed in hotels of this country 64,5 thousand times over the same period.

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Note that a few years ago there was a discussion about the possible abolition of the visa regime with this initiative in 2016, the authorities of the Finnish city of Kotka, as well as the local railroad.

In practice, however, the government preferred to cancel the force for many years the simplified procedure for obtaining visas for Russians. The new rules come into effect from September this year. Clarifies that to obtain visas for Russian citizens will have to provide consular officers with all the supporting documents about the trip, as in other countries of the Schengen zone.

However, as noted the Deputy Director of the IMEMO Alexei Kuznetsov, the decision of the Finnish side on visas are not unexpected.

“Helsinki was a constant pressure, because the EU has always considered that the Finns were too large concessions towards Russia. Finland has always suffered from this, because technically it is required to comply with the General European approach, but in reality the relationship of Helsinki and Moscow are built differently than, for example, relations between Russia and Poland or the Baltic States,” — said Kuznetsov in an interview with RT.

“I’m afraid of random incidents”

 

In addition to the key issues of bilateral agenda, leaders are likely to discuss the issue of safety when flying military aircraft over the Baltic sea. This was reported to journalists by the assistant to the Russian President Yuri Ushakov.

“It will certainly be affected security in the Baltic sea area, including the famous initiative of the Finnish President about increase of level of safety of flights of aircraft over the Baltic sea, in particular the use of transponders in military aviation,” — said Ushakov.

  • NATO fighter F-18 over the Baltic sea
  • RIA Novosti
  • © Russian defense Ministry

We will remind, against the degradation of relations with Russia and NATO, which began after the events of 2014 in Ukraine, frequent incidents between aircraft of Russian air force and military aviation of the member countries of the Alliance, which increased its reconnaissance activity near Russian borders. Only last year, near the borders of Russia was discovered and escorted forces radio-technical troops of Russian air force of about three thousand foreign military aircraft. Such statistics in December 2018 was presented by the chief of the troops, major-General Andrew Coban in an interview with “Krasnaya Zvezda”. A significant proportion of these cases had been planned for the Baltic region, experts say.

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Recall, Finland is one of the few EU countries that are not members of NATO, although the Alliance has repeatedly offered the Finnish leadership to join the military Alliance.

While Helsinki is concerned about how the General hostility in relations between the West and Russia and the increasing tension in the vicinity of the Finnish borders, experts say.

In 2017 the Ministry of defense of Russia and Finland, even organized a direct line of communication for building trust and “increase the transparency of military activity” in the Baltic sea region.

“Finland is a neutral country. They are concerned, like everyone else, the rising tension in the Baltic region. I’m afraid not conscious of provocations and accidental incidents, when someone somewhere shoots, accidentally bump into. And the Baltic is very intensive in terms of transport flow region: aircraft, ships. All this is cause for concern,” — said Alexei Kuznetsov.

The Arctic partnership

 

The Arctic may become another important topic during the talks of Vladimir Putin and Sauli Niinisto. This was previously reported Yuri Ushakov. As recalled by the assistant to the President, Finland in 2017-2019 years chair of the Arctic Council. This organization consists of eight Arctic countries: Denmark, Iceland, Canada, Norway, USA, Finland, Sweden and Russia.

Arctic cooperation between Moscow and Helsinki has more than a decade. In 1980-ies it was on the Finnish shipyards built the hulls for icebreakers with nuclear installation “Taimyr” and “Vaigach”. In 2010, the Finnish company Aker Arctic has provided its technology for the construction of Arctic tanker “Mikhail Ulyanov” and “Kirill Lavrov”. In the future, Helsinki expects to increase its technological participation in the development of the Arctic spaces, and cooperation with Russia, which has vast Arctic areas, the state is of great interest, experts say.

  • globallookpress.com
  • © Olaf Krüger/http://imagebroker.com/

According to Konstantin Voronov, in the area of the Arctic partnership between Moscow and Helsinki, there is a potential for expanding contacts and new orders from Russia for the supply of breakers and equipment for them.

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“But some supercontrast, most likely, will not, because we have not loaded its own industry, its own shipbuilding sector,” — said the expert.

It should be noted that the Russian activity in the Arctic that many Western countries — primarily dissatisfaction show the US and the UK. However, in Helsinki reluctant to talk about the “Russian threat” in the Arctic, as it is not going to share “the Arctic pie”, said Konstantin Voronov.

It is worth noting that on Tuesday, Sauli Niinistö, speaking in Helsinki at the Congress of heads of Finnish diplomatic missions, called for the holding Arctic summit, an intergovernmental forum with the participation of countries in the Arctic Council.

“Although yet to convene the summit failed due to the strained relations between the big countries, the need has not disappeared,” said the Finnish President.

In addition, experts note that Niinistö and Putin can turn to the topic of energy cooperation. First of all we are talking about the “Nord stream — 2”. We will remind, Finland joined the project, and at the end of last year began laying the pipeline in the exclusive economic zone of the country.

Summing up, experts predict that one of the main topics of negotiations will be the General context of relations between Russia and the EU, the countries of the West.

“As for the Ukrainian subjects, it will be discussed particularly deep, as Finland and some other countries believe that Russia could in this matter to do more, although our position is somewhat different. The second question — “Nord stream — 2″. Finns in General in favour of its construction. We have Finland very good relationship, but it is obvious that the leaders will address not only the purely Russian-Finnish agenda” — summed up Alexey Kuznetsov.