well breaking news out of finland this
morning we are getting word that russia
will cut gas supplies to the country of
finland today as of last year 75 to 100
percent of finland's natural gas imports
came from russia of course this is
happening as finland and sweden formally
applied to join nato this week douglas
hickey is the u.s ambassador of finland
he joins us now from helsinki ambassador
thank you so much for being here uh how
is finland planning to fill that huge
gap that is now exists in terms of their
natural gas needs
well thank you uh thank you for having
me i think it's important to put it in
context uh only five percent
of the total energy
requirement of finland is is represented
by that gas
and just last week
i believe was on friday
the finns announced an agreement with
the u.s company
accelerate out of houston
that does liquefied natural gas to
mitigate that issue and they fully
expect to have that excellent online by
the fourth quarter of this year oh
that's that's very good news uh what is
the latest by the way one of the things
that that propelled russia to do this is
is the attempt by finland to join nato
is that is that a done deal now
well they've applied for membership in
nato
it takes all 30 countries
uh to accept them into this process both
finland and sweden
but the read as we sit here today is
people are very positive
to have both those countries participate
because they're thriving democracies
they have a great defense force
they've been preparing for this day for
a long time so uh the sentiment right
now is very positive not just among the
united states
but around nato as a whole there was
there was a hold up i i understand from
uh turkey's leader erdogan uh has that
has that become was is he just vying for
some other deal or or is does he have
serious objections it'll be hard to
overcome
yeah i don't expect they're gonna be
hard to overcome but just like in any
negotiation of 30 parties you're going
to have some folks that
are wanting to make sure their voices
are heard in that process and we're
going to be respectful to the turks and
their requirements
but also at the same time people feel
very confident that this will be a fast
process to get
finland and sweden into nato now finally
i'm just wondering whether finland and
sweden after what they've seen happen in
ukraine and so many military defeats
uh uh by the ukrainians against the
russians uh
do they still fear
the the the russian influence in their
region as much as they did when this
conflict began a couple of months ago
you know the i don't think the finns are
fearful quite frankly uh they're
prepared and they've been prepared for
years
on the border the 830 mile border that
exists between finland and russia so
fear is not
in the dna of the finns it's
preparedness and they've been doing this
for a long time
and the addition of the nato alliance
just gets them to a new level of
defensive preparedness and and and we
should say by the way that the finns
have a very powerful military of their
own don't they
they really do it's it's pretty amazing
for a country of five and a half million
people i tell people that the fins box
above their weights
and as you've you've just seen in the
last couple months you know they did a
major deal with lockheed for 64
f-35 fighter jets which makes them
from an air force perspective one of the
most powerful in all of europe
and and i i do have to throw in a final
question about uh the nuclear
uh aims if any of russia any any word on
that because there were these rumblings
that they may use the nuclear option in
some in some context
yeah i think there's been uh you know
the the only ones causing rumblings
quite frankly are are the russians right
so there's been all kinds of of
discussion around different uh different
elements the finns have great
intelligence they're very prepared
um so uh we have every degree of
confidence that the finns
uh in nato are prepared for anything
that the russians can bring out yeah
they've been dealing with russian threat
for for generations now ambassador
douglas hickey good to see you thank you
very much for being here best of luck to
you sir
so thank you