The accession of Sweden and Finland to the North Atlantic Alliance will be followed by the expansion of NATO’s land borders with Russia, which will entail retaliatory steps from Moscow. This was announced on June 28 by Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia.
“Certainly, we will be ready for retaliatory steps. In the event of such an expansion of NATO, the length of its land borders with Russia will more than double, ”he said in an interview with Arguments and Facts.
He stressed that the accession of countries to the alliance will lead to the fact that “the non-nuclear status of the Baltic will become a thing of the past,” and the grouping of ground forces and the navy there will grow. According to the deputy head of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, even the inhabitants of Sweden and Finland are not happy with this.
On May 18, Finland and Sweden applied to join the North Atlantic Alliance. At the same time, Turkey blocked the start of negotiations on the entry of countries into the organization.
However, later, on May 23, it became known that Ankara was ready to facilitate the entry of the Scandinavian countries into the alliance if it was possible to resolve the contradictions on the issues of support by these countries of the Kurds, whom Turkey considers involved in terrorist activities.
The Russian Foreign Ministry reacted critically to the statement by the authorities of the Scandinavian countries about plans to join NATO, noting that in this way the security of these countries would not be ensured.
On May 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that NATO expansion is artificial. According to him, this is done in the interests of US foreign policy interests.
Putin noted that Russia has no problems with these countries and their entry into NATO does not pose a threat to Moscow. However, he pointed out that the expansion of military infrastructure into this territory would certainly provoke a response from the Russian Federation.
