Russia warns of nuclear power development in Sweden and Finland …
Finland, which shares a 1,300 km (810 km) 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.
Dmitry Medvedev, Vice-Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said that if Sweden and Finland were to join NATO, Russia would have to strengthen its land, naval and air forces in the Baltic Sea.
Medvedev also explicitly addressed the nuclear threat by saying that it could no longer be a question of a “nuclear-free” Baltic Sea – where Russia has its Kaliningrad exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.
“There can no longer be any question of a nuclear-weapon-free status for the Baltic Sea – the balance must be restored,” said Medvedev, who was president from 2008 to 2012.
“Until today, Russia has not taken such measures and will not do so,” Medvedev said. “If our hand is forced well … note that it was not us who suggested this,” he added.
Lithuania said that Russia’s threat was nothing new and that Moscow had deployed nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad long before the war in Ukraine. Read the whole story
The eventual accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO – founded in 1949 to provide collective Western security against the Soviet Union – would be one of the greatest European strategic consequences of the war in Ukraine.
Finland became independent from Russia in 1917 and fought two wars against it during World War II, when the country lost some territory to Moscow. On Thursday, Finland announced a military exercise in Western Finland with the participation of forces from the United Kingdom, the United States, Latvia and Estonia.
Sweden has not fought a war in 200 years and post-war foreign policy has focused on supporting democracy internationally, multilateral dialogue and nuclear disarmament.
KALININGRAD
Kaliningrad is of particular importance in northern European theater. Formerly the Prussian port of Koenigsberg, the capital of East Prussia, it is less than 1,400 km from London and Paris and 500 km from Berlin.
Russia said in 2018 that it had deployed Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, which was captured by the Red Army in April 1945 and handed over to the Soviet Union at the Potsdam Conference.
Iskander, known as SS-26 Stone by NATO, is a tactical ballistic missile system with short range that can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads.
Its official range is 500 km, but some Western military sources suspect that its range may be much larger.
“No sensible person wants higher prices and higher taxes, increased tensions along borders, Iskander, hypersonic and ships with nuclear weapons literally at arm’s length from their own home,” Medvedev said.
“Let’s hope that the common sense of our northern neighbors will win,” Medvedev said.
Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said that Russia had deployed nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad even before the war.
“Nuclear weapons have always been stored in Kaliningrad … the international community, the countries of the region, are fully aware of this,” Anusauskas said according to BNS. “They use it as a threat.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 has killed thousands of people, displaced millions and raised fears of a wider confrontation between Russia and the United States – by far the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
Putin says the “special military operation” in Ukraine is necessary because the United States used Ukraine to threaten Russia and Moscow had to defend itself against Ukraine’s persecution of Russian-speaking people.
Ukraine says it is fighting an imperialist-style coup and that Putin’s allegations of genocide are nonsense. US President Joe Biden says Putin is a war criminal and a dictator.
Putin says the conflict in Ukraine is part of a much broader confrontation with the United States that he says is trying to enforce its hegemony even as its dominance over international order diminishes.
By Guy Faulconbridge
(Report by Guy Faulconbridge; Edited by Hugh Lawson)