Russian President Vladimir Putin said that about Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership process, “Everything was good (with these countries) in the past. Now there will definitely be tensions between us.”
The crisis experienced over the participation of the two countries in NATO was overcome after Turkey withdrew its veto threat.
It is stated that Finland and Sweden can join the union at the end of 2022 at the earliest.
Before applying for membership, Russia had warned that the participation of these two countries would have “serious military and political consequences”.
However, Vladimir Putin said that there are no problems with the membership of the two countries, but that Russia will react to the deployment of troops on their borders.
Speaking for the first time after the process became official at the NATO summit in Madrid, Putin said, “We don’t have the kind of problems we have with Sweden and Finland and Ukraine. No matter if they want to join NATO.”
Continuing his words, Putin listed which counter steps Moscow will take:
“But these countries have to understand that before there was no threat to us from them. But now, if troops and infrastructure are deployed here, we will have to respond to it as we do to any other threat. We will need to pose a similar threat to the threat created.”
He did not give a time limit to the war.
Putin, who went abroad for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine, made these statements in Turkmenistan, a former Soviet country.
The Russian leader said that relations between Moscow and these two countries will inevitably deteriorate and said, “Now there will definitely be tensions between us. If there is a threat to us, it is inevitable.”
Putin also argued that his goals in Ukraine have not changed, and that their aim is to “liberate” the Donbas region.
Arguing that the military operation went as planned, Putin said that it was unnecessary to impose a date limit on the operation.