Putin is open to restoring Russia-Finland ties if Helsinki is, Kremlin says

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Kremlin said on Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin was open to the idea of restoring relations between Finland and Russia, which it accused Helsinki of reducing to "nearly zero" after it joined NATO.

Finland, which shares a 1,300-km (800-mile) border with Russia, joined the NATO military alliance in 2023, which Moscow cast at the time as a dangerous historic mistake.

Finland shut its land border with Russia the same year, accusing Moscow of weaponising migration against the Nordic nation, an assertion the Kremlin denied. The Finnish government said last year it was extending the closure of land border crossings with Russia indefinitely.

On Monday, Finnish President Alexander Stubb - who has repeatedly warned about the need to be tough with Russia and take the threat he says it poses seriously - told his British counterpart Keir Starmer that Helsinki needed to "mentally prepare" for the restoration of ties with Russia at some point.

He said the timing of any rapprochement would depend on when Russia's war in Ukraine ended, but said there was "no denying" that Russia would always be Finland's neighbour.

Asked about Stubb's comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that the two countries had enjoyed strong ties before Finland and Sweden had decided to join NATO.

"We had no problems with them at all. There was mutually beneficial co-operation. The companies of the two countries received dividends and benefits because of this co-operation," said Peskov, accusing Helsinki and Stockholm of now "dragging NATO military infrastructure onto their territory."

"Both Finland and Sweden preferred to reduce these relations virtually to zero. This is, unfortunately, the sad state of our relations that we are witnessing now," he said.

"But President Putin has repeatedly said that our country is open to normalising relations with those who wish to do so."

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Andrew Osborn)