Dmitry Medvedev said that if Sweden and Finland join NATO, then the Russian Federation will have to strengthen its land, naval, and air forces in the Baltic Sea.
One of the Russian president’s closest allies, Vladimir Putin, warned NATO today that if Sweden and Finland join the military alliance, then Russia will have to strengthen its defense in the region, including by deploying nuclear weapons, Reuters reported.
Finland, which shares a 1,300 km (810 miles) border with Russia, and Sweden are considering joining the NATO alliance. Finland will decide in the next few weeks, Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Wednesday.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said that if Sweden and Finland joined NATO, then Russia would have to strengthen its ground, naval, and air forces in the Baltic Sea.
Medvedev also explicitly raised the nuclear threat, saying he could no longer talk about a “nuclear-free” Baltic – where Russia has its own Kaliningrad exclave, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.
“We can no longer talk about the status of the Baltic Sea without nuclear energy – the balance must be restored,” said Medvedev, who was president from 2008 to 2012.
“To date, Russia has not taken such measures and will not do so,” Medvedev said. “If she’s not forced,” he added.
Lithuania said Russia’s threats were nothing new and that Moscow had deployed nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad long before the war in Ukraine.
The eventual accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO – founded in 1949 to provide collective Western security against the Soviet Union – would be one of Europe’s greatest strategic consequences of the war in Ukraine.
On Thursday, Finland announced a military exercise in western Finland involving forces from Britain, the United States, Latvia, and Estonia.
Sweden has not fought a war for 200 years, and post-war foreign policy has focused on supporting democracy internationally, multilateral dialogue, and nuclear disarmament.
