“NATO summit declares Russia its enemy”, writes loyalists Russian newspaper about the meeting in Madrid.
The fact that Turkey has now agreed to admit Sweden and Finland is not mentioned in a word. Far down in the text, the newspaper states that negotiations with Turkey “continue”.
The big news agencies RIA Novosti and Interfax briefly report that Turkey has given Sweden and Finland the green light. No reactions have been heard from the Kremlin so far. It often takes time for the Russian government to make official comments, and in this case it is an issue that has been conspicuously invisible to the Russian public.
Although Putin has explicitly stated that Russia does not accept more new NATO members, his reaction to the Swedish and Finnish NATO applications was surprisingly mild. May 17 he said that Russia has no problems with either Sweden or Finland and that their NATO membership does not pose an immediate threat to Russia. This is in sharp contrast to previous threats that Russia has thrown out that NATO enlargement “forces” Russia into war.
Since then, the Swedish and Finnish NATO process has not been particularly actively monitored by the Russian media.
The reason is probably simple. The war of aggression against Ukraine is taking up all resources, and Russia currently has limited opportunities to intimidate and threaten, for example by mobilizing along the border with Finland.
Erdogan did Putin a favor by blackmailing Sweden and Finland – but that was never the goal. The goal was to maximize his political dividends, a game that Putin if anyone understands. He had hardly expected the game to continue longer than Erdogan sees as beneficial to himself.
Overall, the official Russian reactions so far suggest – including Sergei Lavrov interview for the BBC in mid-June – that the Kremlin has decided not to waste resources on this issue. It is not in Putin’s interest that people begin to ask themselves why Finland and Sweden join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine.