LAST UPDATE: 11.36
Russia warned NATO on Thursday that if Sweden and Finland joined the military alliance, then Russia would have to strengthen its defenses and that there could be no more “nuclear-free” Baltic.
“There can be no talk of any nuclear-free regime in the Baltic anymore – the balance must be restored,” Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s vice-president of the Security Council, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
“To date, Russia has not taken such measures and was not going to take them,” Medvedev said. “If they force us, then … note that we were not the ones who proposed this,” he added.
Medvedev also said in a telegram that if Sweden and Finland joined NATO, Russia would have more officially registered opponents, as reported by the Russian news agency Ria Novosti.
“Sweden and Finland are seriously considering joining NATO. The alliance itself is ready to accept them as soon as possible and with minimal bureaucratic procedures. The United States is now conveying its welcome to the representatives of the two countries by all means. “Just knock on the door timidly and we will let you in. And what does that mean? That means Russia will have more officially registered opponents,” Medvedev said.
Russia should seriously strengthen its land and air defense forces and develop significant naval forces in the waters of the Gulf of Finland if the two countries join NATO, he added.
Medvedev also stressed that if the two countries join NATO, “the land border of the alliance with Russia will more than double in size and should be strengthened.” “It does not make sense to argue that Sweden and Finland would not be candidates for NATO membership without the operation in Ukraine,” he said.
“Russia must react to NATO enlargement without emotion and with calm,” Medvedev said. “And how should we react to that? The answer is clear: no emotion, calm. The number of NATO members – thirty or thirty-two – is not so important to us as a whole,” Medvedev said.
Lithuania: Russia already has nuclear weapons in the Baltic region
Russia already has nuclear weapons in the Baltic region, he stated Lithuania’s Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas on Thursday, according to Reuters, following Medvedev’s statements.
Anusauskas said nuclear weapons had been developed in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in the Baltic Sea before the current crisis. “Today’s Russian threats seem rather strange, as we know that, even without the current security situation, they maintain nuclear weapons 100 kilometers from the Lithuanian border,” he said.
“Nuclear weapons have always been stored in Kaliningrad. The international community, the countries of the region, know this. They use them as a threat,” he said.
The Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, on the Baltic Sea coast, is located between NATO members Lithuania and Poland.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said on Thursday that the Russian threat to increase military forces, including nuclear weapons, in the Baltic region was nothing new.
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Source: Capital
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