Kushagra Bansal – Mumbai Uncensored, 19th April 2022
In the height of Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sweden and Finland get closer to join NATO, disregarding Moscow’s warnings of heightened security forces in the Baltic regions.
Finland, which shares borders with Russia, and Sweden plan to join NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization founded in 1949 by the United States of America to protect themselves from the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Dimitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, warned Sweden and Finland on Thursday that Russia will strengthen their land, naval and air forces in the Baltic Sea, should they join NATO. He also mentions that there will be “no more talk of a nuclear-free status for the Baltic”, where Russia has its Kaliningrad province between Lithuania and Poland. However, Lithuania’s defense minister Arvydas Anusauskas claimed that Russia already has placed nuclear weapons in its Kaliningrad.
Medvedev’s warnings are one of many given to European countries who are planning on joining the U.S. led alliance with previous warnings given to Ukraine who wanted help from the alliance amid the invasion.
CIA Director William Burns commented “While we’ve seen some rhetorical posturing on the part of the Kremlin, moving to higher nuclear alert levels, so far we haven’t seen a lot of practical evidence of the kind of deployments or military dispositions that we would reinforce that concern.”
The addition of Finland and Sweden will cause a big security concern for Russia, making a total of 32 countries across the world, out of which 30 being in Europe, to join the alliance.
Finnish Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, mentioned in a press conference that they will take the final decision in the next few weeks and not months as they “have to be prepared for all kinds of actions from Russia”, raising previous security concerns against Moscow. Although being against joining NATO herself before, Marin’s stance changed after Russia’s invasion in Ukraine. A public poll done by MTV in Finland showed 68% of the population being in favour of joining NATO.
