(TibetanReview.net, Nov13’25) – Finland’s Defence Minister Antti Hakkanen said Nov 12 that China was “massively” financing Russia’s war efforts, which increases the security threat in Europe and poses a challenge to NATO, reported the AFP Nov 13.
Speaking in an interview with the AFP, Mr Hakkanen has said Russia’s cooperation with China had “gone so far” that “China is currently massively financing Russia’s war chest”.
“Russia would not be able to wage war for very long with its own resources. India, of course, provides funding in other ways, but China is doing so quite deliberately,” the minister has said, after meeting with his Nordic counterparts in Helsinki.
“It is supplying military components, cooperating in the defence industry, and organising joint military exercises and various other large-scale activities in the Arctic, Indo-Pacific and European regions,” he has added, calling it a big but manageable challenge for the Western military alliance NATO.
He has said Nordic countries were stepping up their defence cooperation to counter future threats while supporting NATO’s capabilities in the north.
Finland shares a 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border with Russia. It dropped decades of military non-alignment by joining NATO in 2023, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.