Russia has threatened ‘the most undesirable consequences’ if Sweden and Finland join NATO after vowing to bolster its nuclear defences in the Baltic.
The Kremlin is ramping up its bullying rhetoric with the latest comments by Alexander Grushko echoing previous Moscow remarks that NATO membership would guarantee the ‘destruction’ of the two countries.
Earlier today, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said: ‘There can be no more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic – the balance must be restored.’
‘Naturally, we will have to reinforce these borders. Until today, Russia has not taken such measures and was not going to. If our hand is forced well… take note it wasn’t us who proposed this.’
The former president added Russia would ‘seriously reinforce its group of ground forces and air defences and deploy significant naval forces in the Gulf of Finland.’
The threat comes after Sweden and Finland edged closer to NATO membership yesterday, and their application bids could be submitted in weeks.
Sweden’s prime minister Magdalena Andersson is understood to be eager for the country to join the trans-Atlantic alliance by June, to the fury of Vladimir Putin who invaded Ukraine in part for its desire to join to the pact.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked about the comments by journalists, said that ‘this has been talked about many times’ and Putin has issued an order on ‘reinforcing our western flank’ due to NATO’s growing military potential.
Asked if this reinforcement would include nuclear weapons, Peskov said: ‘I can’t say… There will be a whole list of measures, necessary steps. This will be covered at a separate meeting by the president.’
Finland, along with neighbouring Sweden, has historically avoided NATO membership, despite close alignment with the West, in an effort not to provoke Russia.
But Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has decisively changed public opinion in the Scandinavian countries after Russia began the war with a barrage of rhetoric about stopping NATO expansion.
Andersson hosted Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin in Stockholm yesterday to discuss their prospective memberships of the alliance, as a Finnish government report on its international security was also released, sparking their potential bid.
The Swedish application is expected to be submitted by the NATO meeting in Madrid on June 29-20, Swedish reports said yesterday.
Similarly, Finland is hoping to start its application process ‘within weeks, not within months’, its prime minister Sanna Marin said.
And today, Finland announced a military exercise in Western Finland with the participation of forces from Britain, the United States, Latvia and Estonia.
This comes despite Moscow lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov having recently warned it would mean ‘the destruction of the country’.
After today’s warning, Lithuanian Defence Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said Russia already has nuclear weapons in the Baltic it does not publicly acknowledge.
Anusauskas told Lithuania’s BNS wire that nuclear weapons have been deployed in Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea since before the current crisis.
‘The current Russian threats look quite strange, when we know that, even without the present security situation, they keep the weapon 100 km from Lithuania’s border.
‘Nuclear weapons have always been kept in Kaliningrad … the international community, the countries in the region, are perfectly aware of this … They use it as a threat.’
Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave, on the shore of the Baltic Sea, is sandwiched between NATO members Lithuania and Poland.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte on Thursday said the Russian threat to increase military, including nuclear, in the Baltic region was ‘nothing new’.
Kaliningrad is of particular importance in the northern European theatre. Formerly the Prussian port of Koenigsberg, capital of East Prussia, it lies less than 1400 km from London and Paris and 500 km from Berlin.
Russia said in 2018 it had deployed Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, which was captured by the Red Army in April 1945 and ceded to the Soviet Union at the Potsdam conference.
The Iskander, known as SS-26 Stone by NATO, is a short-range tactical ballistic missile system that can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads.
Its official range is 500 km but some Western military sources suspect its range may be much greater.
‘No sane person wants higher prices and higher taxes, increased tensions along borders, Iskanders, hypersonics and ships with nuclear weapons literally at arm’s length from their own home,’ Medvedev said.
‘Let’s hope that the common sense of our northern neighbors will win,’ said Medvedev.
The assault on Ukraine sparked a dramatic U-turn in public and political opinion in Finland and neighbouring Sweden regarding their long-held policies of military non-alignment.
Attempting to join NATO would almost certainly be seen as a provocation by Moscow, for whom the alliance’s expansion on its borders has been a prime security grievance.
But Sweden’s ruling party said this week: ‘When Russia invaded Ukraine, Sweden’s security position changed fundamentally.’
The centre-left Social Democrats have historically opposed NATO membership but the brutal invasion of Ukraine has reignited debate in the Scandinavian kingdom.
A policy reversal for the party, which ruled for an uninterrupted 40 years between the 1930s and 1970s, would be historic.
Sweden is officially non-aligned militarily, although it is a NATO partner and abandoned its position of strict neutrality after the end of the Cold War.
Having initially stressed that non-alignment had ‘served Sweden’s interests well,’ Andersson recently conceded that she was ready to discuss the policy and in late March said she ‘did not rule out’ a bid to join NATO.
Meanwhile in Finland, former prime minister and long-time NATO advocate Alexander Stubb said he believes Finland making a membership application is ‘a foregone conclusion’.
Finland has a long history with Russia. In 1917 it declared independence after 150 years of Russian rule.
During World War II, its vastly outnumbered army fought off a Soviet invasion, before a peace deal saw it cede several border areas to the Soviet Union.
During the Cold War, Finland remained neutral in exchange for guarantees from Moscow that it would not invade.
So the turnaround in sentiment on NATO would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.
As recently as January, Marin said membership was ‘very unlikely’ during her term.
But after two decades of public support for membership remaining steady at 20-30 per cent, the war caused a huge surge.
Recent surveys by a Finnish market research company put 84 per cent of Finns as viewing Russia as a ‘significant military threat’, up by 25 per cent on last year.
In response, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov euphemistically warned the move would ‘not improve’ the security situation in Europe, and Moscow lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov added more bluntly it would mean ‘the destruction of the country’.
‘We have repeatedly said that the alliance remains a tool geared towards confrontation and its further expansion will not bring stability to the European continent,’ Peskov said.
Public statements gathered by the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat suggest half of Finland’s 200 MPs now support membership while only 12 oppose it.
Others say they will announce a position after detailed discussions.
The government said it hopes to build a parliamentary consensus over the coming weeks, with MPs due to hear from a number of security experts.
Marin expects a decision ‘before midsummer’, with many analysts predicting Finland could submit a bid in time for a NATO summit in June.
Any membership bid must be accepted by all 30 NATO states, a process that could take four months to a year.
Finland has so far received public assurances from secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg that NATO’s door remains open, and several members’ support.
Unlike Finland, Sweden shares no land border with Russia and the two countries have not been at war for two centuries.
Nonetheless, pro-NATO sentiment is also rising among Swedes who ‘are realising that they might find themselves in the same position as Ukraine, a lot of sympathies but no military help,’ said Robert Dalsjo, research director at the Swedish Defence Research Agency.
Many commentators expect Sweden and Finland will act in tandem on whether to join, but their leaders stressed they may reach differing decisions.
Sweden’s ruling party this week announced a review of its long-held opposition to joining NATO.
‘For the Social Democrats in Sweden to change opinion [on NATO] is like changing religion,’ former Finnish PM Alexander Stubb said. ‘And I’m not talking Protestant to Catholic, I’m talking Christian to Muslim.’
Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto said Russia’s response could include airspace, territorial violations and hybrid attacks, which Finnish NATO proponents believe the country is well prepared to withstand.
‘Russia will most certainly huff and puff,’ Dalsjo said, but added: ‘I don’t think they will do anything violent.
‘However, in the mood that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is right now, I wouldn’t rule it out entirely.’
Source: Daily Mail
