Fearing the ruin of war-torn country Ukraine, Finland and Sweden’s announcement to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has now turned tense in Northern Europe. The Russian presidential office called it a threat and announced that it would retaliate.
Meanwhile, Britain’s former ambassador to Russia claims that Putin may further strengthen his nuclear force in the Baltic region to teach Finland a lesson. Earlier on Thursday, Finland announced that it would apply for NATO membership. It is expected that Sweden will soon follow the Finland route and apply for NATO membership.
This move by Finland and Sweden will expand the military organization of Western countries NATO and will reach closer to the border of Russia. That too when Putin attacked Ukraine to block NATO’s access to Russia’s border.
This is going to be a huge change in the security of Europe in the last several decades. Finland and Sweden were neutral throughout the Cold War, but after the war in Ukraine, these two countries are completely moving to the Western camp. Former UK ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton told the BBC that Russia would see NATO more as its threat. He said the Ukraine war has proved that Russia’s conventional military is not producing the results that Putin had envisioned. In such a situation, Russia will be very worried. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that Finland will be warmly welcomed. He promised that the process of joining NATO would be greatly facilitated.
On the other hand, the US has welcomed the announcement of Finland joining NATO. The spokesperson of the US President’s Office has said that we will support the application of Finland or Sweden to join NATO. Earlier, Finnish President Souli and PM Sanna Marin had announced in a joint statement that Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay.
Meanwhile, Russia has warned that it will take “military technical” steps in response to Finland’s decision to join NATO.
Russia’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that Finland’s joining NATO would “seriously damage Russia-Finland relations and affect stability and security in northern Europe”. It said that Russia would be obliged to take military-technical and other forms of retaliatory measures to deal with emerging threats to its national security PLC>
