Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday vowed to deploy its troops and strike systems near the Finnish border following its accession to NATO, Al Jazeera reported.
Putin said Finland and Sweden’s entry into NATO is ‘a meaningless step’, adding that Russia will deploy troops and systems of destruction on the Finnish border following its accession to the alliance last April.
“This is an absolutely meaningless step [for Finland and Sweden] from the point of view of ensuring their own national interests,” Putin told Russia’s RIA state news agency and Rossiya-1 state television in a wide-ranging interview.
“We didn’t have troops there [at the Finland border], now they will be there. There were no systems of destruction there, now they will appear,” he added.
Following the launch of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine more than two years ago, Sweden abandoned its long-standing neutrality and joined NATO on Thursday, becoming the organisation’s newest member.
After Hungary–the last of the 31 alliance countries to approve Sweden–submitted its ratification document, the membership became official, Politico reported.
Sweden is now fully covered by Article 5 of the alliance, which requires all other members to defend one another in the event of an attack.
To celebrate the accession formally, a flag-raising ceremony has been planned for Monday (March 11) at the alliance headquarters in Brussels, according to Politico.
Finland, Sweden’s neighbor, became a member of the alliance on April 4 last year. With the two Nordic countries in the alliance, NATO controls almost all of the Baltic Sea.
Both a robust armaments industry and a well-equipped military are present in Sweden. The nation intends to spend 2.1 percent of GDP on defence this year, about twice as much as it did in 2020 and over NATO’s target, as per Politico.
Meanwhile, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Wednesday Russia was gearing up for a “long conflict with the West” and he asked for more spending and coordination on European defence.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in remarks published on Wednesday that Finland and Sweden’s entry into NATO was “a meaningless step” and that Russia will deploy troops and systems of destruction to the Finnish border after Finland joins the alliance.
Orpo told the European Parliament: “Russia is evidently preparing for a long conflict with the West and represents a permanent and essential military threat to Europe.”
“If we, as a united Europe, fail to respond sufficiently to this challenge, the coming years will be filled with danger and the looming threat of attack,”
Orpo, whose country neighbors Russia, urged the 27-country EU to step up defence spending and said the bloc had to take care of its own defence.
