Russia will respond if NATO sets up infrastructure in Finland, Sweden
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia March 18, 2022. RIA Novosti Host Photo Agency / Alexander Vilf via REUTERS
“>
FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia March 18, 2022. RIA Novosti Host Photo Agency / Alexander Vilf via REUTERS
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia would respond in kind if NATO deployed troops and infrastructure in Finland and Sweden after joining the US-led military alliance.
“With Sweden and Finland, we do not have the problems we have with Ukraine. They want to join NATO, go on,” Putin told Russian state television after talks with regional leaders in the Central Asian ex-Soviet state of Turkmenistan.
“But they must understand that there was no threat before, while now if military contingents and infrastructure are deployed there, we must respond in kind and create the same threat for the territories from which threats against us are created.”
He said that it was inevitable that Moscow’s relations with Helsinki and Stockholm would deteriorate due to their NATO membership.
“Everything was fine between us, but now there may be some tension, it certainly will,” he said. “It is inevitable if there is a threat to us.”
Putin made his comment a day after NATO member Turkey lifted its veto over Finland’s and Sweden’s offer to join the alliance after the three nations agreed to protect each other’s security.
The move means that Helsinki and Stockholm can continue with their application to join NATO, which marks the biggest change in European security in decades.
Putin added that the goals of what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine remained unchanged, that its goal was to “liberate” eastern Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and create conditions for ensuring Russia’s security.
He said that Russian troops had advanced in Ukraine and that the military intervention went as planned. There was no need, he said, to set a deadline to end the campaign.