Russia said on Wednesday it would take unspecified militarytechnical measures and other countermeasures to protect itself from Sweden's NATO membership, a move it called aggressive and a mistake.
Sweden cleared a final hurdle to NATO membership on Monday after the Hungarian parliament approved the traditionally neutral Nordic country's membership.
Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO after Russia sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in 2022, triggering Europe's biggest conflict since World War II, a bitter battle that continues two years later.
“We will closely monitor what Sweden will do in the aggressive military bloc, how it will implement its membership in practice (…) on this basis we will build our response with retaliatory measures of a militarytechnical and other nature,” Maria Zakharova said , spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.
“Sweden's entry into NATO is accompanied by a continued rise in antiRussian hysteria in the country, which, unfortunately, is encouraged by the Swedish political and military leadership, but whose main source lies abroad. It is not the Swedes themselves who are responsible for the election; this choice was made for the Swedes,” she said.
Sweden's move to join NATO is fueling tensions and militarization, he added.
The Russian embassy in Stockholm also spoke on its Telegram account on Tuesday of unspecified military and technical countermeasures, depending on the extent of NATO troop and material deployments in Sweden.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Russia's comments were not surprising.
“That’s what they said when Finland joined NATO,” Kristersson said during a trip to the southern Swedish town of Trollhatten on Wednesday, according to the TT news agency.
“It is known that Russia does not like that Sweden or Finland are members of NATO, but we make our own decisions.”
He said Sweden was “on guard” and would face a response from Russia.
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