Finland seeks to reassure Russia

KYIV: Finland has sought to allay Moscow’s fears about its bid to join NATO, as fierce fighting raged in Ukraine’s east, slowing down a hoped-for Russian advance.

Finland and Sweden are poised to jettison decades of military non-alignment to join NATO as a defence against feared further aggression from Russia.

Moscow has warned Finland, with whom it shares a 1300km border, that it would take “reciprocal steps”.

Hours after Finland’s grid operator said Russia had pulled the plug on electricity supplies overnight, President Sauli Niinisto had a “direct and straight-forward” conversation by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Avoiding tensions was considered important,” Mr Niinisto’s office said.

“The phone call was initiated by Finland.”

Mr Putin, however, told him that Finland joining NATO would be a “mistake”, insisting that Russia posed “no threat to Finland’s security”, the Kremlin said.

Finland’s bid to join NATO is expected to be announced this weekend.

Both Finland and Sweden, which both have sizeable Kurdish populations, will first have to convince NATO member Turkey on the sidelines of an informal gathering of the alliance’s foreign ministers in Berlin.

On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he opposed the bids and he accused both countries of harbouring “terrorist organisations”.

Ankara has regularly accused Stockholm, in particular, of harbouring members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been designated a terrorist organisation in the UK, European Union and the United States.

In Ukraine, the government and military claimed that it was holding back a Russian assault in the strategic eastern Donbas region, stifling Moscow’s attempt to annex the south and east.

Russia, which sent in troops to Ukraine on February 24, has increasingly turned its attention to eastern Ukraine since the end of March, after failing to take the capital Kyiv.