Russian State TV Sends Ominous Warning to NATO Nation

Russia will "start concentrating" on Finland because the northern European nation has closed several border crossing points between the two countries, Russian state TV host Sergey Mardan has warned.

Mardan said on his show, Mardan Live, that Finland was "very important" to "elites from St. Petersburg" and accused the nation of erecting a new Iron Curtain, according to an English translation posted to X, formerly Twitter, by an adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Anton Gerashchenko.

Finland is a member of the European Union and joined the NATO military alliance in April. The move angered Russia and led to a Kremlin declaration to "strengthen military capabilities."

Tensions escalated further after Finland closed four crossings on its border with Russia on Saturday.

The posts of Vaalimaa, Nuijamaa, Imatra and Niirala in southeast Finland were all shut by the Finnish Border Guard after Helsinki accused Russia of deliberately sending illegal migrants without paperwork to the crossings in retaliation for the country joining the NATO alliance.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at a regular news briefing that the claims were not true. He told the press: "This causes nothing but deep regret because we had long-standing, very good relations with Finland, pragmatic, based on mutual respect.

"And, of course, we regret that these relations were replaced by such an exclusively Russophobic position, which the leaders of this country began to espouse."

In his post to X, Gerashchenko said Russian officials had sparked the issue deliberately.

He wrote: "Russia is creating this situation not so much to demonstratively worsen relations with Finland and create problems for it, but to recreate the Iron Curtain for its own citizens. Putin's regime wants to bring back the situation of the USSR and the Cold War."

Mardan also said on state TV that "the closed border is, in fact, the Iron Curtain." He added: "This tells you what kind of life we've entered better than anything else...for the St. Petersburg elites, Finland is a big deal. Precisely from here and on, I will assume, Russia will start concentrating."

The TV host is known for his controversial views and previously compared being Ukranian to swearing an oath to the devil.

In October on Mardan Live, he said having a Ukranian nationality is a "political choice" and "completely deliberate."

"It's just a ritual," Mardan said. "It's like swearing an oath to the devil. You denounce Christ and say, 'Now I am a Ukrainian.'"