Finland says it is close to concluding a defence cooperation agreement with the US, the latest in a series of steps the formally neutral Nordic country has taken to bolster its security in the face of heightened Russian military activity.

The country’s defence minister, Jussi Niinistö, said he hoped the deal – incorporating joint military training, information sharing and research – would be signed before the US presidential election in November.

“It’s one of the reasons to have it done this autumn. But I’m certain we will continue to work together with either one of main candidates winning,” Niinisto told Reuters news agency. There was no immediate response from the Pentagon on a potential agreement.

The deal would provide a framework for increased cooperation between the armed forces of the two nations but would not involve any binding commitment for either country to come to the defence of the other. Finland signed a similar agreement with the UK in July.

Sweden, the other Nordic country to have remained outside Nato, signed a defence cooperation agreement with the US in June. Leaders from both Sweden and Finland also took part in a Nato summit last month in Warsaw, and their armed forces have taken part in Nato military exercises in the region as nervousness has grown around the Baltic over an increasing number of Russian military drills in the air and sea following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Both Nordic states have already signed agreements that would make it easier for them to host Nato troops in a crisis, and they contributed troops to the Nato mission in Afghanistan.

Russia has warned it would respond to any move by Finland or Sweden to join Nato. In a meeting with his Finnish counterpart in early July, Vladimir Putin claimed (wrongly) that Russian troops had been withdrawn 1500km from the Finnish border, but suggested that decision would be reviewed if Finland moved towards Nato membership. Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said in April that Russia would reassess its troop deployments along its northern flank if Sweden joined the alliance.

In a recent defence policy review, Finland, which has a 800-mile border with Russia, said it would leave open the option of joining Nato, but a panel of experts warned that any such move would trigger a “harsh” Russian reaction, and opinion polls show that a majority of Finns oppose Nato membership.

Dmitri Trenin, the director of the Moscow Centre of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace described the proposed Finnish-US agreement as “a significant –if at this point largely symbolic – step.”



“Unlike in the days of the Cold War, Finland is no longer “neutral” between Russia and the West,” Trenin added. “They know which side they are on, and are not shy to demonstrate it. However, they are careful not to create more problems for themselves even as they move closer to the US/NATO. Their position from now on can be compared to that of Sweden during the Cold War: an undeclared member of the Western alliance.”