Moscow has said it will be forced to strengthen its defences in the Baltic if Finland and Sweden join Nato, including by deploying nuclear weapons, as the war against Ukraine entered its seventh week and the country braced for a major attack in the east.
The Russian former president Dmitry Medvedev, a senior member of Russia’s security council, said on Thursday that all its forces in the region would be bolstered if the two Nordic countries joined the US-led alliance.
Finland and Sweden are deliberating over whether to abandon decades of military non-alignment and join Nato, with the two Nordic countries’ leaders saying Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine had changed Europe’s “whole security landscape”.
Their accession to the alliance would more than double Russia’s land border with Nato members, Medvedev said. “Naturally, we will have to reinforce these borders” by bolstering ground, air and naval defences in the region, he said. » | Jon Henley, Europe correspondent | Thursday, April 14, 2022
