Finnish President Sauli Niinisto stressed that Helsinki continues to provide military assistance to Kiev.MUNICH, February 18.
/tass/. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said that Helsinki does not intend to disclose information about its military assistance to Kiev, because then Russia can find out which weapons his country has and which no longer.
"We don't want our neighbor to read about what we have, and what more we don't have," he claimed on Friday in an interview with German TV channel ARD on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. Niinisto stressed that Helsinki continues to provide military assistance to Kiev.
Touching upon the possibility of supplying German Leopard tanks to Ukraine, the President noted that Finland is the only non-NATO country that has a Leopard and that it has a "very long border" with Russia. "This means that our contribution in terms of the number [of tanks that can be transferred to Ukraine] cannot be very large," Niinisto stated.
Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said this week that Helsinki has not yet made a final decision on the supply of Leopard tanks to Ukraine. The German government earlier announced its decision to send 14 Leopard 2A6 tanks to Ukraine. In addition, Berlin allowed other countries to re-export. On February 7, the German Cabinet approved the delivery of 178 Leopard 1A5 tanks to Kiev.
