Russian President Vladimir Putin on. File photoASHGABAT, June 30There are no such problems in Russia’s relations with Sweden and Finland as with Ukraine, if they want to join NATO, let them join, however, if the alliance’s military infrastructure is deployed in Finland and Sweden, Russia will be forced to respond in a mirror manner, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. Finland and Sweden Against the backdrop of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, on May 18, applications for membership in the alliance were submitted to the NATO Secretary General. Initially, Turkey blocked the start of the process of consideration of these applications. The day before, Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed a memorandum in the field of security, which takes into account all the concerns of Ankara. Turkey, in turn, withdrew its objections to the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO. «As for Sweden and Finland, we do not have such problems with Sweden and Finland, which, unfortunately, we have with Ukraine … We have nothing what could worry us from the point of view of Finland or Sweden's membership in NATO. If you want — please. Only we must clearly and clearly understand ourselves — there was no threat before, in the case of the deployment of military contingent and infrastructure, we will have to respond in a mirror way and create the same threats in the territories from which they pose threats to us,» Putin said at a press conference following the results of the Caspian summit, answering the question of how the accession of these countries to NATO will affect Russia's relations with them. He also called it false and «having nothing to do with reality» the thesis that Russia's goal of pushing NATO forces away from its borders, preventing Ukraine from joining the alliance, led to the opposite, only from Sweden and Finland.
Putin spoke about the expansion of NATO, the special operation and the attacks of the G7 leaders»For us, the membership of Finland and Sweden in NATO is not at all the same as the membership of Ukraine, these are completely different things. They understand this very well. They just throw this thesis into public opinion to show — yeah, Russia didn’t want it, but now it got it twice. No. This is a completely different thing,” the Russian leader stressed. He noted that, unlike Ukraine, Sweden and Finland do not persecute people who feel they are part of Russian culture.
NATO has been preparing for confrontation with Russia since 2014, Stoltenberg said
