“I am not aware of that. No, no such demand was made. That was definitely not discussed”, - russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said, commenting on reports in European media that russia had demanded Finland's withdrawal from NATO.
Finnish Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen, in turn, said that russia was testing Helsinki and Europe by putting forward a whole range of demands. According to him, Finland's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance is not open to discussion.
Finland joined NATO in April 2023, abandoning its decades-long policy of military non-alignment following russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to the German newspaper Bild, russian representatives at the negotiations in Abu Dhabi handed the European side proposals for establishing a “new security order in Europe”. These included Finland's withdrawal from NATO, as well as a ban on the deployment of Alliance military bases in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
According to the publication, moscow is also demanding that all occupied Ukrainian territories be formally recognised as russian and that it gain control over the entire Donetsk oblast, including territories currently controlled by Ukraine. In addition, the proposals include demilitarising the ports of Odesa and Mykolaiv.