Attainable Polish plan to ship troops to Russian border will stoke tensions -Kremlin

MOSCOW/HELSINKI (Reuters) -The Kremlin, commenting on media studies that Poland plans to ship “troops” to Finland’s border with Russia, stated on Wednesday such a transfer might stoke tensions and that Russia would see it as a menace.

Poland was sending “a crew of army advisors” to Finland, in response to “an official request for allied help within the face of a hybrid assault on the Finnish border,” the top of Poland’s Nationwide Safety Bureau Jacek Siewiera stated in a publish on the X social media platform.

“A crew of army advisors will present on-site data on border safety, additionally in operational phrases,” he stated.

Finland has closed its border with Russia after a sudden wave of refugee arrivals that Helsinki stated was orchestrated by Moscow, one thing Russia has denied.

Contacted by Reuters, Finnish authorities stated they weren’t instantly conscious of such plans and couldn’t remark.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, who visited his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda in Warsaw on Nov. 20-21, was not instantly accessible for remark.

In a name with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated in reference to Poland’s doable transferring of troops to the border: “That is a fully redundant measure to make sure border safety, as a result of there isn’t a menace there.”

“The Finns should be clearly conscious that this can pose a menace to us – a rise within the focus of army models on our borders.”

Any deliberate deployment could be unprovoked and unjustified, stated Peskov.

(Reporting by Reuters, Anne Kauranen in Helsinki;Writing by Felix Gentle;Enhancing by Andrew Osborn and Bernadette Baum)