Except of course for the little fact that Ukraine wasn’t in NATO.

People outside of Finland might forget that before Russia attacked Ukraine, they had several military bases around Finland, with plenty of troops in them. https://www.is.fi/ulkomaat/art-2000000728599.html from 2014 (in Finnish, sorry). For the Ukraine war, they emptied these bases. What they’re doing now is just restoring those bases to what the had been for several decades.

Putin is just plain lying, as he is every time his mouth moves. They have maintained a highly threatening stance against Finland ever since WW2.