Military analyst: membership of Sweden and Finland in NATO can lead to fundamental changes in Russia
A Danish military analyst said in an interview with DR that the membership of Sweden and Finland in NATO could lead to fundamental changes in Russia. In addition, he is confident that by including these two countries from the "key region" in its composition, the alliance will expand its strategic capabilities. In fact, the Russians will be surrounded from Anatolia to the Arctic.
Anders Melchior Frigaard
If Finland and Sweden find themselves under the auspices of NATO, the borders of the defensive alliance will stretch from Turkey in the south to the Arctic in the north.
Thus, by including two countries from the "key region" in its composition, NATO will receive a wide range of strategic capabilities. This is a "nightmare scenario" for Russia, since NATO will reach the 1,340-kilometer Finnish border and get a long coastline of Sweden in the Baltic, estimates the chief analyst of the Danish Military Academy, Steen Kjærgaard.
He notes that the Nordic countries will unite within the framework of NATO cooperation in the Baltic, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will receive strong security guarantees, and the length of the border between the alliance and Russia will more than double.
"This means that NATO is actually surrounding the Russians from Anatolia to the Arctic. And this is the worst fear for them. This means that NATO will find itself in a fundamentally different situation than Russia. I can't help but think that this is a harbinger of fundamental changes in Russia," Stan Kergor believes.
Russian Anger
Stan Kergor foreshadows that public statements by Finland and Sweden about joining NATO will entail a storm of reactions from Russia.
"There is no doubt that there will be a lot of rhetoric and threats. There will be a powerful political reaction in Russia," Stan Kergor believes.
An important point, in particular, for Sweden was the security guarantees during the transition period from application to full membership. Denmark provided her with such a guarantee on Monday.
However, according to Sten Kergor, the probability of a military attack on Sweden or Finland during the transition period is almost zero. Nevertheless, he fully imagines attacks of a different plan.
"Rather, we should expect the transfer of strategic weapons, violations of sovereignty, cyber attacks, disinformation, all sorts of mysterious incidents, and so on," he says.
Vladimir Putin has repeatedly cited the expansion of NATO to the east as one of the reasons for the special operation in Ukraine. The alliance, on the contrary, strongly emphasizes that it is exclusively defensive in nature, and the promise not to expand to the east — contrary to what Putin claims — denies.
At the summit of the CSTO, a military alliance between Russia and a number of former Soviet republics, Putin said that the United States "most aggressively" took advantage of the expansion of NATO to aggravate the already difficult situation with global security.
NATO denies any aggression, stressing that it "does not seek confrontation and does not pose a threat to Russia." Putin stressed that Russia has no unresolved issues with Sweden and Finland, but there are problems with NATO.
"Nevertheless, the appearance of military infrastructure on the territory of these countries will certainly provoke a response from Moscow. Which one depends on the threats that will be created in the new realities," he said after the summit.
Dramatic changes are possible in Russia
Former President and current Vice-President of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev made it very clear about Russia's possible response when the first information about applications from Sweden and Finland for NATO membership was received in mid-April.
"There can be no talk of any nuclear—free status of the Baltic — the balance must be restored," Medvedev said at the time.
Russia has a Kaliningrad exclave located between Lithuania and Poland. In principle, the Russians can place strategic nuclear weapons there — according to Medvedev, this will be "restoring balance". The Russians already have nuclear forces at a naval base near Murmansk in the northwest of the country.
But a new arms race will not help the Russians, Stan Kergor believes.
"There is a risk that this could become a path to disintegration for Russia. If the Russians, in response to the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, start a new nuclear arms race, they will lose. Not in the short term, but in the long term, because the whole rich world is against them," he says.
He believes that even if an arms race starts between Russia and NATO, it is far from a fact that the risk of nuclear war will increase.
"Nuclear weapons are more of a political deterrent than an effective weapon. Since its invention and first application, the logic has been this: no one will attack nuclear states. Hence the strategy of mutual deterrence," concludes Stan Kergor.
