1) Putin on Ukraine and NATO = Molotov on Finland and “imperialists”
Essentially, Putin repeats Molotov’s words. See for yourself:
Molotov, 29 March 1940:
“All this barbarism and countless atrocities are the fruits of policies of the Finnish White Guard, which sought to inflate the hatred to our country in its own people.It is not difficult to see that the war in Finland was not just a clash with the Finnish troops. No, here the situation was more complicated. There was a clash of our troops here not just with the Finnish troops, but with the combined forces of the imperialists of a number of countries, including Britain, France and others who helped the Finnish bourgeoisie with all kinds of weapons, and especially with artillery and aircraft, as well as with their own people under the guise of “volunteers,” with their gold and all sorts of supplies, with their rabid propaganda all over the world to fan the war against the Soviet Union.”
Putin, 26 January 2015:
“We often say: the Ukrainian army, the Ukrainian army. But in actuality, who is fighting there? There indeed partially are some official units of the armed forces, but largely there are so-called ‘nationalist volunteer battalions.’ Essentially, this is not an army, it’s a foreign legion, in this case, NATO foreign legion, which of course does not pursue Ukraine’s national interests. There are completely different goals there, and they are connected to the achievement of the geopolitical objective of Russia’s containment, which absolutely does not coincide with the national interests of the Ukrainian people.”
2) Also, do you see any contemporary parallels to the “Finnish Democratic Republic”?
It was created on 1 December 1939 in the territory of the Karelian Isthmus occupied by the Soviet Union during the Soviet-Finnish War (1939-1940). It was officially recognized by three countries: the USSR, Mongolia, and “Tuvan People’s Republic”).
- Vyacheslav Molotov signing Agreement on Mutual Assistance and Friendship between the USSR and the Finnish Democratic Republic
On 2 December 1939, the USSR and the Finnish Democratic Republic signed Agreement on Mutual Assistance and Friendship. It was announced that the previous Government of Finland fled and therefore it does not govern the country any longer. On 12 March 1940, Finland and the Soviet Union signed a peace treaty, in which the Finnish Democratic Republic is not even mentioned. After this, the People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, Molotov announced (29 March 1940 at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR) that “the Finnish people’s government” self-dissolved.
