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Russia warns of nuclear weapons in Baltic if Sweden and Finland join Nato
![Russia warns of nuclear weapons in Baltic if Sweden and Finland join Nato]()
‘No more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic,’ deputy chair of security council says Russia warns of nuclear weapons in Baltic if Sweden and Finland join Nato
‘No more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic,’ deputy chair of security council says
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 in Ukraine entered its seventh week.
The former president Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chair of Russia’s security council, said on Thursday that Russia would bolster all its forces in the region if the two Nordic countries joined the US-led alliance.
Finland and Sweden are deliberating 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.
