If Finland and Sweden join NATO, “there will no longer be any talk of a non-nuclear status in the Baltic.” About it wrote on Thursday, Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, posted on his Telegram channel.
Russian representatives had previously negatively assessed the possibility of the two countries joining NATO, but for the first time Medvedev announced specific steps on the part of Moscow.
According to him, “Russia will have more officially registered opponents” and therefore it will have to “seriously strengthen the grouping of ground forces and air defense, deploy substantial naval forces in the Gulf of Finland.” In this context, Medvedev also mentions nuclear weapons. “Until now, Russia has not taken such measures and was not going to take them,” he writes.
At the same time, according to Medvedev, Russia does not have territorial disputes with Sweden and Finland, as with Ukraine, therefore, Russia will treat the entry of these countries into NATO differently than the hypothetical entry of Ukraine, which was announced by Moscow as one of the reasons for the invasion of Ukraine, which began 24 February.
Sweden and Finland are now actively discussing the issue of joining NATO. The public opinion of these neutral countries has changed dramatically since the start of the war in Ukraine – the majority is now in favor of joining NATO. Decisions have not yet been made, but it is expected that applications from Sweden and Finland may be submitted as early as this summer.
- As a result of the Second World War, the USSR annexed part of the Finnish territories that it had previously conquered during the war of 1939-1940. Finland agreed to the loss of these territories in the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 and has no plans to somehow call this treaty into question.
- With Finland’s accession to NATO, the land border between Russia and NATO countries will be extended by more than a thousand kilometers.