http://www.russiajournal.com/news/rj_news.shtml?nd=1065
HELSINKI - Russian President Vladimir Putin lashed out on Monday at plans to expand NATO eastwards and said only a "sick mind" could believe Moscow posed an aggressive threat to European security.
"I underline that we don't see any objective reason for the Baltic states to become members of NATO," Putin told a news conference on his first state visit to Finland.
"We are not glad about this. We think it is a mistake," he stressed at a news conference with Finnish President Tarja Halonen. Putin said expanding the western alliance would not solve a single problem in Europe's current security environment.
"Only in a sick imagination could one think that some aggressive elements could...emerge from Russia," he said.
Putin made the remarks on the second day of his visit to non-aligned Finland, which is not seeking to join NATO but insists that the door to the western alliance must remain open and that states have a right to decide whether to join.
Former Soviet Baltic republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all aim to join NATO but Russia vehemently opposes enlargement of the trans-Atlantic alliance to its doorstep.
Putin said it was up to the countries themselves to decide their defence policy, and Russia did not intend to fan any hysteria over the issue. Halonen said she believed the Baltic states would eventually become full members of NATO. "It's a matter of when," she said.
Putin praised Finland's example to its Baltic neighbours. "Finland has in a magnificent way shown the benefits of neutrality over the decades," he said. Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen met Putin to discuss cross-border cooperation, including a planned pipeline to carry Russian gas to the West and a Russian proposal to develop fast train connections from Helsinki to St Petersburg and Moscow.
But no major agreements were signed during the visit.
PUTIN LAYS WREATH ON MANNERHEIM'S TOMB
The changed relationship between Russia and Finland was highlighted on Monday when Putin laid a wreath at the tomb of Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, the field marshal who led Finland's vastly outnumbered forces against the Red Army in World War Two.
Finland was finally defeated in 1944, and forced to cede a tenth of its territory to the USSR but was never occupied nor subjugated to Communism like most of Eastern Europe.
During the Cold War, Helsinki walked a tightrope between the hostile East and West blocs in uneasy friendship with Moscow.
Finland said on Monday ties with Russia had developed well. "Relations could hardly be much better," Lipponen told reporters after lunch with Putin.
Finland is the only European Union member bordering Russia, and Lipponen's government has spearheaded a Northern Dimension for the EU to involve Russia in northern regional development.
Earlier in the day, a handful of demonstrators held placards outside the Presidential Palace and the news conference venue demanding "Russia out of Finland" and "Return our territory".
They referred to the area of Karelia, a part of pre-war Finland, annexed by the USSR at the end of the war. At the news conference, Putin acknowledged the protesters but said that altering European borders was not the way forward.
He told Finnish businessmen Russia's economy could expand by six percent this year, the most optimistic growth forecast so far made for 2001. "According to our forecasts, we had expected economic growth this year of four percent, but now we will more than likely reach six percent," Putin said.
Putin departed for Moscow on Monday evening after a state banquet at the Finnish presidential palace.
