SOVIET’S PROMISE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 95, 20 March 1940, Page 10

SOVIET’S PROMISE

NO DEMANDS IN NORTH-WEST. ADVANCES TO SWEDEN. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) STOCKHOLM March 18. The Foreign Office spokesman stated that Russia had withdrawn her objections to the refortification of the Aaland Islands -and had given a formal, diplomatic promise that she had no further territorial demands in north-west Europe. She also requested the earliest re-establishment of friendly relations. The spokesman denied that Russia had requested a free port in the Gulf of Bothnia. He revealed that Germany had formally threatened intervention if Sweden had allowed the passage of Allied forces to Finland. He added that Sweden had sent Finland one-fifth of the ’planes■ constituting the Swedish Air Force, and also 90,000 rifles, 80 anti-tank guns, 100 anti-aircraft guns, 150 heavy guns, several hundred field guns, and all the necessa r v a m niun it ion.

Finland did not receive foreign assistance, except Swedish, for six weeks after the outbreak of the war. The first Allied supplies arrived in the middle of January. The spokesman stated: “The army took the maximum risks to assist Finland, exhausting all the army reserves, munitions, and guns, and depleting all the civilian reserves of foodj petrol and coal.

“Sweden was in a dangerous position at the end of the war and we could not involve ourselves in a position in which the country would be at the disposal of the four greatest military Powers as a convenient battleground. We gave what we had every time Finland made an urgent appeal, and we are now faced with the difficult position of replacement.”