Helsinki, Feb. 11 (BNA): Finland signed a $9.4 billion deal on Friday to buy US F-35 fighter jets, striking a deal to bring 64 radar-evading warplanes to a country neighboring Russia at a time of high tensions between Moscow and Moscow. The West massed on Russian troops near the Ukrainian border.
However, it will be a few years before the aircraft enter service. Finland said earlier that the aircraft would begin to be deployed in 2027.
The Finnish Defense Forces said in a statement on Friday that the contract with the US government and aircraft maker Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) includes, in addition to the aircraft, maintenance equipment, spare parts and training services, adding an air-to-air purchase agreement. Ammunition will be signed later in 2022.
“The goal is to ensure that the Finnish F-35 system has the best possible performance until 2030,” the defense forces said.
Finland, which was historically neutral during the Cold War, is a member of the European Union but not a member of NATO. In recent years, it has strengthened its cooperation with the Western Military Alliance, and its defense materials policy is based on all new equipment being NATO compliant.
The Finnish government said the decision to buy the US planes, announced in December, was part of long-term plans to bolster the country’s defenses, rather than a response to the current standoff between the West and Russia over Ukraine.
“This is part of our long-term planning and has nothing to do with the current situation as such,” Finland’s ambassador to the United States, Mikko Hotala, said in a statement.
Russia has massed more than 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine, and Western countries fear it is planning an attack. Moscow denies plans to invade but says it may take unspecified “military-technical” measures unless demands are met, including a pledge not to accept new countries into NATO and the withdrawal of Western forces from Eastern Europe.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said in January that the country currently had no plans to apply to join NATO, but added that the Scandinavian country reserves the right to join if it so desires.
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