Photo: A truck-mounted Topol intercontinental ballistic missile is displayed at Moscow's Red Square during the annual Victory Day parade, May 9, 2008. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
A Russian official close to President Vladimir Putin warned NATO that the Kremlin will deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles into the Baltic region if Sweden and Finland join the U.S.-led military alliance.
Finland, which shares an 810-mile border with Russia, and Sweden, which shares a maritime border in the Baltic Sea, have sought protection from NATO after Russia invaded its tiny western-leaning neighbor Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
One of Putin’s reasons for invading Ukraine was that Ukraine refused to promise that it would not join NATO.
Finland has indicated that it will decide in the next few weeks whether to join NATO, according to a Reuters report. That eagerness could put more pressure on Sweden, which could be left as the only Nordic country outside the alliance.
The decision of the two Eastern European nations whether or not to join NATO is a paradigm shift from their long-standing security policies that hinge on geopolitical neutrality and military independence.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council and former Russian president from 2008 to 2012, said that if Sweden and Finland join NATO, then Russia would have to strengthen its land, naval and air forces in the Baltic Sea.
“There can be no more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic – the balance must be restored,” Medvedev wrote in a Telegram post on April 14.
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The conflict in Ukraine has forced the two Nordic nations to reconsider their absence from the NATO alliance forged after World War II, which commits members to defend one another if attacked.
Russia has 6,257 nuclear warheads, while the U.S. admits to having 5,550, according to a January fact sheet released by the Arms Control Association. Both countries have increased their nuclear warheads since the Cold War ended in 1991.
The threat of nuclear weapon use has risen since Russia invaded Ukraine, with Putin announcing that his country’s nuclear forces had been placed on “high alert.”
The U.S. and other western nations have imposed an array of sanctions against Russia since it invaded Ukraine, after weeks of denying it was planning to actually attack its small western-backed neighbor.
Photo: A truck-mounted Topol intercontinental ballistic missile is displayed at Moscow’s Red Square during the annual Victory Day parade, May 9, 2008. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
