The World Blog by humble servant.

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö reportedly plans to call his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to discuss the changed security situation in the region now that leaders in Helsinki have decided to join NATO. Niinistö commented on his planned outreach to Putin in an interview with Sweden’s TT news agency on Friday, one day after issuing a statement that Finland “must apply for NATO membership without delay.” The Kremlin has said that Finland’s accession to NATO would be a threat to Russia and that the US-led military bloc’s eastward expansion is undermining security in the region. “I’m not the kind of person who just slips around the corner,” Niinistö said of his effort to discuss the issue with Putin. “I am going to call him and say that the situation has changed, as we both know.” Key NATO member against Sweden and Finland in blocREAD MORE: Key NATO member against Sweden and Finland in bloc Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer (832-mile) land border with Russia and fought a war with...

Russian utility Inter RAO will stop exporting electricity to Finland from May 14, Finland’s grid company said on Friday. According to Fingrid, citing Inter RAO, the trade in electricity imported from Russia will be suspended due to difficulties in receiving payments for electricity sold on the market. “We are forced to suspend the electricity import starting from May 14,” said RAO Nordic, a Finland-based subsidiary of Russia’s Inter RAO, adding that it “is not able to make payments for the imported electricity from Russia.” Fingrid said “There is no threat to the adequacy of electricity in Finland,” noting that power from Russia accounted for only 10% of Finland's total consumption. The reduced supply can be compensated by increased imports from Sweden, as well as partly by domestic production, said Fingrid’s Senior Vice President Reima Päivinen. ssion capacity of cross-border connections from Russia, in an effort to safeguard the security of its energy system. Finnish media ...

A sixth round of Ukraine-related anti-Russia sanctions is unlikely to include an oil embargo, several media outlets reported citing sources within the EU government. According to Bloomberg, EU countries are still striving to agree on the sanctions package in full, and some member states believe that the decision on Russian oil should be postponed. Representatives of Hungary, insist that the embargo will have devastating consequences on their country’s economy. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban recently urged that any option for an oil embargo should be discussed at a summit of EU leaders. EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell on Friday announced that work on the oil ban has so far reached no results. “If there is no agreement at the level of ambassadors, then on Monday the ministers when they gather they have to provide the political impetus... I am sure we will have an agreement. We need it and we will have it. We have to get rid of the oil dependency from Russia,” he said, a...

Claims by high-ranking officials that the Russian economy is crashing are completely inaccurate, according to former Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl, who spoke about the global crisis. She explained that the Russian economy is an important part of the global economy, especially though not exclusively due to its role in the supply of commodities. These include not only oil and gas, but also uranium, important metals, and other materials that are crucial for the world economy. Kneissl said it was incorrect to state that the Russian economy is suffering due to sanctions. Any such claim is a “complete misassessment,” she added. “One thing is certain, we are only in the middle of a global economic situation where we see interdependence,” said the former minister. “Oil is a globally traded commodity, and if it’s not flowing west, it can easily flow south, north, east. And this is already happening.” The fact that the Russian ruble is now increasingly supported by commodities con...

How important is Ukraine for people around the world? Regardless of whether their leaders have sided with Ukraine or not, citizens of 26 out of 27 countries surveyed by the Ipsos International Research Center put “inflation” as their number one concern in an April survey. These include countries that have taken a hard line against Russia (like the US, UK, Canada, and Poland), and those that haven’t condemned Moscow (like India, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia). Poverty, unemployment, crime, and corruption made up the four most worrying issues behind inflation, with “military conflict between nations” coming in at a distant 11th, between climate change and immigration control. Citizens of Poland are most worried about the conflict over their eastern border, with 38% ranking it the most important issue facing the world. Only 20% of Americans rated it their number one issue, while just 13% of Hungarians, who also share a border with Ukraine, rated it top. Do Westerners want to send wea...

The Swiss government on Thursday reported that 6.3 billion Swiss francs ($6.33 billion) worth of Russian assets have been frozen under the country’s sanctions. The report said the figure indicates a decrease from the roughly 7.5 billion Swiss francs (over $7 billion) in funds the government reported frozen on April 7. A senior official at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) agency overseeing sanctions, Erwin Bollinger, pointed to fewer funds (over $2 billion) newly frozen than those that had been released. “We can’t freeze funds if we do not have sufficient grounds,” Bollinger told journalists. Switzerland’s bank lobby estimates that the country’s banks hold up to $213 billion of Russian wealth. Its two largest lenders, UBS and Credit Suisse, each hold tens of billions of francs for wealthy Russian clients, it says. Data shows that Credit Suisse alone froze around 10.4 billion Swiss francs ($10 billion) of Russian clients’ money through March as part of sanctions imp...

A prominent US House Republican plans to introduce a bill calling for the State Department to require applicants for non-immigrant visas to declare whether they are affiliated with any communist or totalitarian party. The legislation proposed by Representative Jim Banks (R-Indiana) largely aims to block “foreign propagandists” – particularly those linked to the governments of China and Russia – from exploiting America’s H-1B visa program for skilled workers to infiltrate the United States, media outlet Axios reported on Thursday. “We all know that China has used our overly lax visa system to export its propaganda and malign influence,” Banks told Axios. The bill, called the “Communist Visa Transparency Act,” would apply to visa applicants from all countries. Applicants from China would additionally be asked to declare whether they have any present or past affiliation with their country’s military, law enforcement or security forces. Although the bill doesn’t spell out whether visa...

Finland, which is preparing a formal application to join NATO, doesn't see any “direct military threats” from Russia at the moment, the Nordic nation’s ambassador to the US-led military alliance has said. Helsinki only expects potential “cyber harassment” or “disinformation campaigns” from Moscow, Klaus Korhonen told CNN on Thursday. However, the envoy claimed Russia has targeted Finland with such activities in the past and they are “nothing new.” Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin issued a joint statement on Thursday saying the country “must apply for NATO membership without delay.” The leaders said they will formally announce a decision on Sunday and forward it to the Finnish parliament for approval. Korhonen explained that although Finland stayed out of NATO during the Cold War, it’s been forced to reconsider its stance due to a “very drastic change in our security environment” after the Russian military operation in Ukraine. Finland, which sha...

Moscow has reversed its stance on Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union because the once purely economic organization has become a purveyor of hostile policies with a global outreach, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. He was explaining why Russia, which had previously been amenable to the prospect of Ukraine becoming a member of the bloc, has now made a U-turn on the issue. Lavrov said Kiev’s membership could pose a greater risk to Moscow than previously believed. “The EU is turning from the constructive economic platform that it was originally meant to be into an aggressive militant player that has ambitions stretching far beyond the European continent,” said the foreign minister. Lavrov cited rhetoric used by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during her visit to Japan earlier this week. She praised Tokyo for siding with the Western nations that have imposed economic sanctions on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine, and expressed a...

Russia could stop providing Finland with natural gas due to the country’s bid to join NATO, Finnish newspaper Iltalehti reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources. According to the publication, it could happen as early as Friday, May 13. The newspaper notes previous concerns among the Finnish public that Russia could turn off the gas on May 23, the due date for the next payment. The country’s Minister for European Affairs Tytti Tuppurainen told the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper recently that Finland did not intend to agree to Russia’s new ruble-based gas payment scheme. Finnish Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen commented on the matter in a live interview with the Iltalehti daily in Parliament on Thursday, saying “it's a pretty good question from which direction the gas might be cut.” Ville Tavio, chairman of the Basic Finnish Parliamentary Group, went on to add that Finnish politicians had been informed of various forms of Russian retaliation if Finland fails to comply with Mosc...

A US plan to provide nearly $40 billion in additional military and economic aid to Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia has hit a speed bump, with Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) blocking a quick vote to approve the funding bill and likely delaying passage to at least next week. Paul stood in the way on Thursday by objecting to a request by Senate leaders to approve “unanimous consent,” a provision that allows bills with strong bipartisan support to be fast-tracked without debate. The former presidential candidate said he would only allow for a quick vote if the bill was revised to include the appointment of a special inspector general to monitor how the massive aid package is spent – a demand that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) refused to meet. Schumer claimed that Washington had a “moral obligation” to help Ukraine in its fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “immoral war.” He said Paul’s oversight provision was strongly opposed by Democrats and Repub...

An investigation has reported that some of the hotels on FIFA's list of recommended accommodation ahead of this year's World Cup in Qatar are refusing bookings from same-sex couples, while others have requested that gay couples refrain from public displays of affection in the country in which homosexuality remains illegal. LGBT groups have expressed concern at how same-sex couples might be treated in the country since Qatar was awarded hosting rights to the World Cup in 2010, which came as part of a flurry of criticism at FIFA's decision to nominate a nation which has also faced accusations of abuses of migrant workers' rights while they built the required stadiam and infrastructure. But despite FIFA stating that everyone from all walks of life will be welcome in Qatar when the World Cup kicks off in November, a team of Norwegian, Swedish and Danish journalists have published the results of an independent investigation in which they found that there remains a high de...

According to Ukrainian officials, over 20,000 foreign nationals from 52 countries have arrived in the country to participate in the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. However, some have shared their experiences claiming that they had been asked to take part in suicide missions, others complain of corrupt commanders and little or poor equipment. Mamuka Mamulashvili, who serves as the commander of the Georgian Legion - an international brigade set up in Ukraine in 2014 - told the UK’s Telegraph newspaper that he estimates that “70% of people who’ve come out to join the International Legion have already turned back,” adding that those who are coming into the country are too impatient to see combat. “This isn’t war tourism,” he says. A volunteer from the UK, Matt Robinson, who serves as a military trainer in Kiev, noted that many of the foreign nationals coming into the country are severely unprepared for what awaits them as some of the recruits have nothing but simple...

The Western sanctions campaign to punish Russia over the Ukraine conflict will backfire, causing suffering around the world while failing to promote peace in the former Soviet republic, a top Chinese diplomat has told the UN Security Council. Dai made his comments as the Security Council met to discuss the humanitarian crisis brought on by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Although he also spoke of efforts to help protect children affected by the fighting, such as encouraging Russia and Ukraine to work together to enable more civilian evacuations, he said the only real solution is a negotiated peace deal. “Sanctions will not bring peace but will only accelerate the spillover of the crisis, triggering sweeping food, energy and financial crises across the globe,” Chinese deputy UN ambassador Dai Bing said on Thursday in New York. He added that continuing to impose sanctions on Moscow will force children around the world to “suffer the bitter consequences.” “Achieving peace is the best pr...