Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Bild’s report that Russia requested Finland’s withdrawal from NATO among other proposals on broader issues of European security during the newly resumed trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi. In his words, “There was no such talk about this for sure.” The Finnish Defense Minister told reporters that same day that “Such matters are in no way a matter for negotiation. Russia knows that. This is absolutely outrageous to even suggest such a thing.”
Russia almost certainly didn’t request Finland’s withdrawal from NATO due to the political near-impossibility of its authorities complying, which entails informing the US of its withdrawal from the bloc one year in advance per Article 13. Rather, what Russia probably did was reaffirm its 2021 security guarantee requests as a negotiating tactic for inspiring creative diplomatic solutions to the NATO-Russian security dilemma, the calculation and details of which were explained here.
Its relevance to Finland rests with Russia’s primary request that pre-1997 NATO members withdraw their forces from post-1997 members’ territories in order to return to the military-strategic status quo from that year’s NATO-Russia Founding Act. None of them are expected to voluntarily comply with this demand so the US would have to coerce them as explained here and here. Post-1997 members could still hypothetically deploy as many of their forces to one another’s territories as they’d like, however:
“The countries between Germany and Russia that are collectively known as the Intermarium will play the most significant role in [NATO 3.0’s containment of Russia]. The center of military-security gravity would then become the Baltic over which the Swedish-led Viking Bloc and Poland will exert joint military patronage over its eastern reaches (Finland and the Baltic States). The US and the E3 (Britain, France, and Germany) will “Lead From Behind” by optimizing the ‘military Schengen’.”
The abovementioned scenario was elaborated on more in detail here regarding the post-war European security architecture that’s beginning to take shape. The Arctic front of the “cordon sanitaire” in which Finland de facto participates as part of the Swedish-led Viking Bloc is the most threatening to Russia due to its members’ rapid aerial build-up that’ll collectively dwarf Russia’s fifth-generation fighters as explained here. Finland’s planned acquisition of 64 F-35As is already three times Russia’s 20 or so Su-57s.
Even in the political fantasy of Finland withdrawing from NATO, the bloc would likely still provide it with de facto Article 5-like security guarantees just like it’s provided Ukraine since Day One of the largest-scale conflict. As was explained here, NATO’s provision of arms, funds, intelligence, and satellite communications support via the US Government’s Starshield amounts to the spirit of Article 5, and Finland would likely receive the same – if not more – in a war with Russia even if it withdrew from NATO.
Therefore, not only is it a political near-impossibility that Finland would withdraw from NATO, but it would be a moot move anyhow since NATO isn’t expected to do nothing in the event of another Finnish-Russian War even if Finland withdrew. The Kremlin knows this, so Peskov’s denial should be believed, with it being much more likely that Bild innocently or maliciously misreported the impact that Russia’s reportedly reaffirmed security guarantee requests would have on Finland if NATO complied with them.
