04.14.2022 19:46 (Akt. 04.14.2022 19:50)
Moscow also doesn’t want NATO in Northern Europe ©APA/Sputnik
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warns NATO against including Sweden and Finland in the military alliance. If that happens, Russia would have to step up its defenses. You then have “a few more opponents,” Medvedev said. One can no longer speak of a “nuclear-weapon-free status for the Baltic States”, said the vice president of the National Security Council and Putin confidant.
“The balance has to be struck,” Medvedev said. To date, Russia has not taken such measures and has not planned to do so.
He referred to the transfer of infantry and anti-aircraft systems to northwest Russia, as well as the transfer of naval forces to the Gulf of Finland, which is part of the Baltic Sea. Referring to the Finnish and Swedish population, he stressed that “no one in their right mind would want an increase in tensions on their border and would like to have Iskander, hypersonic missiles and nuclear-armed ships next to their home”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is considering security measures if Sweden or Finland join NATO, according to his spokesman. That will happen as soon as the Defense Ministry presents proposals to Putin on how to strengthen Russia’s security in this case, says Dmitry Peskov. The ministry still needs time for that, says the spokesman for the presidential office in a press conference call.
When asked whether this reinforcement would also include nuclear weapons, Peskov said: “I can’t say. There will be a whole list of necessary measures and measures. The president will talk about that in a separate session.”
According to Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, joining the NATO defense alliance would help Finland fight “various threats”, especially towards Russia. Finland has a “pretty strong conventional military”, but Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine has ushered in an era where new threats are also emerging, the minister told CNN on Thursday. “By working more closely with NATO, we can combat all these different threats,” he said.
The war of aggression in Ukraine shows that Russia is willing to take greater risks in its neighbourhood, the minister said. There is also – although this is more speculation – the threat of “possible use of nuclear or even chemical weapons”. Of course, all of this has implications for Finland’s security, Haavisto said. The majority of the population now supports NATO membership. Parliament will therefore look into the matter in the coming weeks. If there is a majority in favor of membership, NATO’s 30 current members will still have to agree, he explained. Finland borders Russia for over 1,300 kilometers, and the two countries are also linked by centuries of history.
For Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, Medvedev’s threat “is nothing new”. The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad has been a “very militarized zone” for many years. Even before the current crisis, Russia had nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, explained Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas. “The current Russian threats seem quite strange when we know that they keep the weapon 100 kilometers from the Lithuanian border, even without the current security situation,” the minister told the BNS news agency. The countries of the region and the international community are fully aware of this. Russia uses this as a threat. Kaliningrad is located on the Baltic Sea between the NATO countries Lithuania and Poland.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda described the Russian threat to install nuclear weapons in the Baltic Sea region if Finland and Sweden join NATO as “an empty shot in the air”. “I don’t know if it’s possible to re-deploy something that has basically already been implanted,” he said in Vilnius on Thursday.
According to the head of state of the Baltic country of the EU and NATO, Russia has already transferred nuclear weapons to its Kaliningrad enclave on the Baltic Sea. “They are not strategic, but they are in place,” said Nauseda. To the west, Lithuania borders Kaliningrad – the area around the old Königsberg.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock insisted on the free decision rights of both countries. “It is the right of each country … to freely choose its defense alliances,” Baerbock said Thursday during a visit to Niger. This is especially true for two European countries that are already members of the European Union.
“If Finland and Sweden decide to do so, they will be very welcome” in the defense alliance, Baerbock said.