Last Wednesday in Stockholm, the prime ministers of Sweden and Finland, countries where neutrality and military non-alliance are deeply woven into their cultures, shocked the world by issuing a joint statement that, thanks to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they were considering applying for membership in NATO.
“There is a before and after Feb. 24,” Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson told reporters in reference to Russia’s latest military incursion in Ukraine. “The security landscape has completely changed.”
“We have to be prepared for all kinds of actions from Russia,” Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said, adding that Finland would decide about applying to NATO in a matter of weeks.
While both countries had already closed off their skies to Russian air traffic, the announcement about NATO membership further risked the wrath of the Kremlin, which has repeatedly threatened both against joining the 30-member military alliance.
Over the last week in Sweden, radios, portable generators and camping stoves are flying off shelves as its 10.4 million citizens begin stocking up on canned food, water, flashlights and matches in preparation for anticipated acts of Russian sabotage. In Finland, where the government has stockpiled enough grains and fuels in strategic reserves to last at least five months, they’re expecting more cyberattacks like those that hit the ministries of defense and foreign relations on April 8, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the Finnish Parliament via video. Like the Swedes, the 5.5 million residents of Finland believe that Russia will soon target its infrastructure, including the internet and electrical grid, and Russian violations of the airspace in both countries are already on the rise.
In response to their public declarations of interest in NATO membership, Moscow has renewed its threats to retaliate and bolster nearby ground and air forces, deploying “significant naval forces in the Gulf of Finland,” according to Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council. “There can be no more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic [Sea],” Medvedev added, a threat dismissed by analysts in the region as saber rattling, since tiny Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave on the Baltic, is widely believed to already hold nuclear weapons.
“If you’re talking about large nuclear weapons, it doesn’t really matter if the bases literally are in the Baltic Sea or the Gulf of Finland, if it is in Kaliningrad or if they’re 500 miles away,” Charly Salonius-Pasternak, security and defense analyst at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki, told Yahoo News.
The addition of Finland and Sweden to the Western military alliance would not only expand NATO territory by 300,000 square miles toward the northeast — in blatant defiance of Putin’s demands last December to shrink NATO’s footprint — but it would also roughly double NATO’s borders with Russia to nearly 1,600 miles. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who called Sweden and Finland “our closest partners,” said in early April that he expected all NATO “allies will welcome them.” He added, “We know that they can easily join this alliance if they decide to apply.”
“These are two really capable military powers, who are far more capable than the size of the countries would suggest,” Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told Yahoo News with regard to Sweden and Finland. And they would also boost military capabilities in the Baltic Sea, home to three small NATO countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — whose defense has always posed a problem for the alliance, Daalder said.
The likely accession of Finland and Sweden is “a really big deal” for NATO as well as Finland and Sweden themselves, Daalder added.
“Sweden has been neutral or [militarily nonaligned] since…
Read More: Finland and Sweden, moving toward possible NATO membership, brace for Russian backlash