Putin said his country has \u201cno problem\u201d if Finland and Sweden join NATO
\n ASHGABAT
\nRussia has \u201cno problem\u201d if Finland and Sweden join NATO, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.
\n\u201cWe don\u00b4t have problems with Sweden and Finland like we do with Ukraine,\u201d Putin told a news conference in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat.
\n\u201cWe don\u00b4t have territorial differences,\u201d the Russian leader continued.
\n\u201cThere is nothing that could bother us about Sweden and Finland joining NATO. If Finland and Sweden wish to, they can join. That\u00b4s up to them. They can join whatever they want.\u201d
\nHowever, \u201cif military contingents and military infrastructure were deployed there, we would be obliged to respond symmetrically and raise the same threats for those territories where threats have arisen for us,\u201d Putin said.
\nSweden and Finland have both decided to apply to join NATO after Russia launched its military operation in pro-Western Ukraine on February 24.
\nThe formal process for membership was launched at the NATO summit in Madrid on Wednesday.
\nUntil now, Russia had always been critical of the prospect of the two Nordic countries joining the alliance, saying it would be a \u201cdestabilising factor\u201d for international security.
\nPutin nevertheless condemned NATO\u00b4s \u201cimperial ambitions\u201d, accusing the alliance of seeking to assert its \u201csupremacy\u201d through the Ukraine conflict.
\n\u201cUkraine and the well-being of Ukrainian people is not the aim of the collective West and NATO but a means to defend their own interests,\u201d Putin said.
\n\u201cThe NATO countries\u00b4 leaders wish to… assert their supremacy, their imperial ambitions,\u201d he added.
\nThe Atlantic alliance and \u201cabove all the United States have long needed an external enemy around which they can unite their allies,\u201d the Russian leader said.
\n\u201cIran wasn\u00b4t good for that. We\u00b4ve given them this opportunity… to gather the whole world around them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Putin said his country has \u201cno problem\u201d if Finland and Sweden join NATO ASHGABAT Russia has \u201cno problem\u201d if Finland and Sweden join NATO, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. \u201cWe don\u00b4t have problems with Sweden and Finland like we do with Ukraine,\u201d Putin told a news conference in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat. \u201cWe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263343,"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-269153","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