Finland, which shares a 1,300-km border with Russia, and Sweden are considering joining the alliance
\n LONDON
\nOne of Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s closest allies warned NATO on Thursday that if Sweden and Finland joined the US-led military alliance then Russia would have to bolster its defences in the region, including by deploying nuclear weapons.
\nFinland, which shares a 1,300-km (810-mile) border with Russia, and Sweden are considering joining the NATO alliance. Finland will make a decision in the next few weeks, Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Wednesday.
\nDmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia\u2019s Security Council, said that should Sweden and Finland join NATO then Russia would have to strengthen its land, naval and air forces in the Baltic Sea.
\nMedvedev also explicitly raised the nuclear threat by saying that there could be no more talk of a \u201cnuclear free\u201d Baltic – where Russia has its Kaliningrad exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.
\n\u201cThere can be no more talk of any nuclear\u2013free status for the Baltic – the balance must be restored,\u201d said Medvedev, who was president from 2008 to 2012.
\nUntil today, Russia has not taken such measures and was not going to,\u201d Medvedev said. \u201cIf our hand is forced well… take note it wasn\u2019t us who proposed this,\u201d he added.
\nLithuania said Russia\u2019s threats were nothing new and that Moscow had deployed nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad long before the war in Ukraine.
\nThe possible accession of Finland and Sweden into NATO – founded in 1949 to provide collective Western security against the Soviet Union – would be one of the biggest European strategic consequences of the war in Ukraine.
\nFinland gained independence from Russia in 1917 and fought two wars against it during World War Two during which it lost some territory to Moscow. On Thursday, Finland announced a military exercise in Western Finland with the participation of forces from Britain, the United States, Latvia and Estonia.
\nSweden has not fought a war for 200 years and post-war foreign policy has focused on supporting democracy internationally, multilateral dialogue and nuclear disarmament.
\nKaliningrad
\nKaliningrad 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.
\nRussia 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.
\nThe Iskander, known as SS-26 Stone by NATO, is a short-range tactical ballistic missile system that can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads.
\nIts official range is 500 km but some Western military sources suspect its range may be much greater.
\n\u201cNo sane person wants higher prices and higher taxes, increased tensions along borders, Iskanders, hypersonics and ships with nuclear weapons literally at arm\u2019s length from their own home,\u201d Medvedev said.
\n\u201cLet\u2019s hope that the common sense of our northern neighbors will win,\u201d said Medvedev.
\nLithuanian Defence Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said Russia had deployed nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad even before the war.
\n\u201cNuclear weapons have always been kept in Kaliningrad … the international community, the countries in the region, are perfectly aware of this,\u201d Anusauskas was quoted as saying by BNS. \u201cThey use it as a threat.\u201d
\nRussia\u2019s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands of people, displaced millions and raised fears of a wider confrontation between Russia and the United States – by far the world\u2019s two biggest nuclear powers.
\nPutin says the \u201cspecial military operation\u201d in Ukraine is necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia and Moscow had to defend against the persecution of Russian-speaking people by Ukraine.
\nUkraine says it is fighting against an imperial-style land grab and that Putin\u2019s claims of genocide are nonsense. US President Joe Biden says Putin is a war criminal and a dictator.
\nPutin says the conflict in Ukraine as part of a much broader confrontation with the United States which he says is trying to enforce its hegemony even as its dominance over the international order declines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Finland, which shares a 1,300-km border with Russia, and Sweden are considering joining the alliance LONDON One of Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s closest allies warned NATO on Thursday that if Sweden and Finland joined the US-led military alliance then Russia would have to bolster its defences in the region, including by deploying nuclear weapons. Finland, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5934,1116,338,5933,633],"class_list":{"0":"post-255072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-finland","9":"tag-nato","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-sweden","12":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"yoast_head":"\n