The Murmansk senator who threatens Finland gets medal from Putin

The controversial politician who is known for his extremist views on world affairs looked proud as he this week accepted the award from the Kremlin.

The Medal for Service for the Motherland was pinned to the suit jacket of Dolgov by Sergei Kirienko, the First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration.

The 54-year old former diplomat who now represents Murmansk in the Federation Council, reportedly gets the medal for his “big contributions to the development of parliamentarianism, active legislative work and many years of faithful service.

In the same ceremony, Murmansk Governor Andrei Chibis was awarded the Friendship Order, a medal for achievements in the field of peace-making, friendship and cooperation between peoples. Chibis might have gotten it for his active pro-war stance and engagement in occupied parts of Ukraine.

“It is a great honour for me to be part of the team with the Governor of the Arctic! State awards is the result of the huge efforts of the regional government on development of our North!” Dolgov says in a comment.

But the state official, who has many years of diplomatic service in the Russian delegation at the UN, is hardly tuned towards peace and development in relationships with neighbouring Nordic countries.

On several occasions, he has lashed out against Finland and its rapprochement with NATO.

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In posts on Telegram, Dolgov have openly threatened the neighbouring Nordic country because of its cooperation with the western alliance.

“Helsinki must remember that Moscow will very diligently follow the situation and any deployment of NATO weapons, and especially nuclear weapons, could be reason for us to aim our guns at the Finns,” he said.

“Russia categorically believes that the membership of Finland in NATO is a wrong decision [because] it will add security risks for our country,” he added

Dolgov marks his Telegram channel with a large “Z,” the Nazi-inspired symbol of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and he is a regular guest at propagandist Vladimir Solovyev’s TV shows.

In one of the shows, Dolgov ridicules Finland’s (former) Prime Minister Sanna Marin and accuses the country of turning towards the early 1940s when it was an ally of Nazi Germany.

According to the senator, the policy of Marin is a “full collapse of the line of the past decades with a balanced relationship between west and east.”

Dolgov argues that “everything that this girl says, the Premier of Finland, are similar to statements from 1939.”

“Back then, we gave them in and they got silent. Then, they were among the most faithful allies of Nazism, of the German Nazis, and all of this again reappeared. They should again read these pages of history,” the Murmansk senator said.