Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Monday that Russia would respond if NATO began strengthening the military infrastructure of Sweden and Finland. These two countries have decided to join the US military alliance after the invasion of Ukraine.
Putin, Russia’s supreme leader since the last day of 1999, has repeatedly cited the expansion of the post-Soviet NATO alliance eastward towards Russia’s borders as a reason for the Ukraine conflict.
Speaking to leaders of a Russian-dominated military alliance of ex-Soviet countries, Putin said the expansion of NATO was being used by the United States in an “aggressive” way to exacerbate the already difficult global security situation.
Russia, Putin said, has no problems with Finland or Sweden, so there is no direct threat of expanding NATO to include those countries.
“But the expansion of military infrastructure to this region will certainly provoke our response,” Putin told the leaders of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which includes Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
“What (response) it is – we will see what threat it creates for us,” Putin said at the Grand Kremlin Palace.
“Problems are created for no reason at all. We will react accordingly.”
Russia has given some specific instructions on what to do in response to NATO’s Nordic expansion, the biggest strategic consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to date.
One of Putin’s closest allies, former President Dmitry Medvedev, said last month that Russia could deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad if Finland and Sweden joined NATO.
Putin said “special military operations” in Ukraine were necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia through the expansion of NATO and Moscow had to defend against the persecution of Russian-speaking people.
Putin said assurances were given when the Soviet Union collapsed that the alliance would not expand eastward toward Russia, a promise he said was a lie that embarrassed Russia at a time of its historic weakness.
NATO, which was founded in 1949 to provide European security to the Soviet Union, ultimately defeated Russia in almost every military action apart from nuclear weapons, although the backbone of the alliance’s military power is the United States – whose troops are mostly deployed far from Europe.
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