homes, mainly women and children. to me, it was really amazing, and i m really moved by this. i could tell ukrainian men who are fighting on the front lines today, i can tell them, listen, your women and children are safe in poland, don t worry, nothing will happen to them, so you can fight with russia. i think that is extremely important every man has a sense of that. president duda, pleasure to have you on. translator: thank you very much. coming up in a moment on gps, i ll talk to top officials from sweden and finland, both applied for membership in nato last week seeking to increase their own security, but also risking becoming russia s next targets.
has experienced war themselves. they might have contacts with finland, with other countries. people have fled to sweden with experience in war, but sweden itself has not experienced war. so for us the nonaligned politics has been very pragmatic. it s been a way of not getting involved in wars. and for us changing this policy is quite big. it s a huge thing. it s generational swedes that have grown up, it has not been the same for 200 years but still basically had a political position not getting involved and being nonaligned. but it has changed. the last couple decades we joined the european union, we have a broad corporation with finland, our closest ally and a very strong partnership with nato. this is a big historic event for sweden. and for you this russian aggression tells you you re in a
new world, you re in a new security environment. yes, totally a new world. and also we think it s a long-term change. it s not just the war right now. this is a new russia. this is a new environment. so, for many swedes, i think this really brought the debate to a different level. so we had a debate in sweden, but it was quite cautious, it was quite respectful. you could have different opinion. but, in the end, most people, the population, but most political parties agreed this was the time to see that we are more secure within nato than outside nato. and we want to go hand in hand with finland. from finland s point of view, you also have a long history here, and it s been one where you ve been very careful not to provoke the russians because you share that border. in a way you re almost a suburb of st. petersburg. what made you change?
last weekend, russia turned off the tap, halting natural gas exports to finland. this came just days after finland and its nordic neighbor sweden officially applied for membership to nato. at the world economic forum in davos this week, i talked to finland s foreign minister and sweden s finance minister about those paradigm-shifting decisions. sweden has been neutral for 200 years, maybe more. this is a big deal. give us a sense of, do swedes think of it in those historical terms, this is a break with centuries of neutrality? i think you have to understand that sweden has been nonaligned for 200 year dollars. last time we were at wars was the napoleon wars. that brings some perspective to it. so no ordinary family in sweden
trigger any military action against finland or sweden. it might trigger something on cyber space or on hybrid format and so forth. but, of course, we have been all the time saying that we are not provoking, we want to keep the border peaceful. we want to keep the bilateral corporation on professional basis. one big predictable element of this could be that russia invades finland. do you think that s a serious prospect? and are you prepared? we have always, of course, throughout our history been prepared for that. we have been prepared for the mi military action, the violation of our air space and land. we have been prepared for cyber and hybrid threats and so forth. and that s in our dna. and that s a part of our defense