Russia’s ex-president Dmitry Medvedev warns NATO against including Sweden and Finland in the military alliance. There can then no longer be any talk of a “nuclear-free status for the Baltic States,” said the deputy chairman of the National Security Council and Putin confidant.
“The balance has to be struck,” said Medvedev. To date, Russia has not taken such measures and has not planned to do so.
He referred to the transfer of infantry and anti-aircraft systems to northwestern Russia, as well as the transfer of naval forces to the Gulf of Finland, which is part of the Baltic Sea. Referring to the Finnish and Swedish population, he emphasized that “no one in their right mind would want an increase in tensions on their border and would like to have Iskander, hypersonic missiles and ships with nuclear weapons next to their home”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is considering security measures in case Sweden or Finland join NATO, according to his spokesman. This will happen as soon as the Defense Ministry has submitted proposals to Putin on how to strengthen Russia’s security in such a case, says Dmitry Peskov. The ministry still needs time for this, says the spokesman for the presidential office in a conference call with the press.
When asked whether this reinforcement would also include nuclear weapons, Peskov said: “I can’t say. There will be a whole list of measures and necessary steps. The President will talk about that in a separate session.”
The Russian ex-president’s threat is ‘nothing new’
For Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, Medvedev’s threat is “nothing new”. The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad has been a “very militarized zone” for many years. Even before the current crisis, Russia had nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, explained Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas. “The current Russian threats seem quite strange when we know that they keep the weapon 100 kilometers from the Lithuanian border even without the current security situation,” the BNS news agency quoted the minister as saying. The countries in the region and the international community are fully aware of this. Russia uses this as a threat. Kaliningrad is located on the Baltic Sea between the NATO countries Lithuania and Poland.
Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda described the Russian threat to station nuclear weapons in the Baltic Sea region if Finland and Sweden join NATO as “an empty shot in the air”. “I don’t know if it’s possible to redeploy something that’s basically already deployed,” he said in Vilnius on Thursday.
According to the head of state of the Baltic EU and NATO country, Russia has already transferred nuclear weapons to its Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad. “Not strategic, but they’re deployed,” Nauseda said. In the west, Lithuania borders on Kaliningrad – the area around the former Königsberg.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock insisted on the free decision-making rights of both countries. “It is the right of every country (…) to freely choose its defense alliances,” said Baerbock on Thursday during a visit to Niger. This is especially true for two European countries that are already members of the European Union.
“If Finland and Sweden decide to do so, then they are very welcome” in the defense alliance, said Baerbock.
Source: Nachrichten
