There was being some comment about this from Yanis Varoufakis (see below). But some people are challenging if Varoufakis is making any sense...so I don't know the facts. How much was the West involved in this neutrality for Finland? Was there a summit and was the West involved in the summit? Was there being a handshakes between the US and Soviet leader concerning Finnish neutrality?
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/3/25/yanis_varoufakis_biden_give_putin_exit
YANIS VAROUFAKIS: Well, let’s take Finland, shall we? Finland had a war with Russia, with the Soviets. There was a stalemate, very much like what we have now in Ukraine. And the result was neutrality. There was an agreement between Washington, on the one hand, and Moscow, on the other, that Moscow would not interfere with Finland, it would not invade, it would take its troops out, and Finland would be allowed to live an independent, Western, democratic lifestyle, as long as it doesn’t join NATO and it doesn’t host American or European armies in its territory. The result was a wonderful state, a country, you know, that in every ranking outranks your country, the United States, my country, Greece, when it comes to education, to democracy, to technological innovation. Remember Nokia and all the great companies that came out of Finland. Finland is a success story. Neutrality allowed Finland to have democracy, independence and success and shared prosperity, a social democratic country, similarly with Sweden, similarly with Austria. So it’s a well-tested and well-tried-out model.
The reason that Ukraine has not had the same opportunity so far — because some people will say that — it’s been said that they gave up their nuclear weapons, they were not in NATO, therefore they were neutral, and nevertheless they suffered incursions and now this invasion by Mr. Putin. Well, it wasn’t the same. What Ukraine lacks is a summit, a summit between the American president and the Russian president, a summit involving the government of the United States and the government of Russia. This is what Finland had, what Austria had. The two blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, represented by the president of the Soviet Union, or the general secretary of Communist Party then, and the American president, or a series of American presidents, they agreed — they shook hands — that Finland, Sweden, Austria will be left alone, under conditions of neutrality, to prosper democratically and to be part of the West without being part of NATO.
