Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev delivers a speech during a meeting with members of the Security Council in Moscow, Russia February 21, 2022. Sputnik/Alexey Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS

LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) – One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies warned NATO on Thursday that if Sweden and Finland joined the U.S.-led military alliance, Russia would deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in an enclave in the heart of Europe.

Finland, which shares a 1,300 km (810 mile) border with Russia, and Sweden are considering joining the NATO alliance. Finland will decide in the coming weeks, Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Wednesday. Read more

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said that if Sweden and Finland joined NATO, Russia would have to strengthen its ground, naval and air forces in the Baltic Sea.

Medvedev also explicitly addressed the nuclear threat, saying there could no longer be talk of a “nuclear-free” Baltic – where Russia has its Kaliningrad enclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.

“There can no longer be talk of a nuclear-free status for the Baltic – the balance must be restored,” said Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012.

Medvedev said he hoped Finland and Sweden would see the meaning. Otherwise, he said, they would have to live with nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles close to home.

Russia has the largest arsenal of nuclear warheads in the world and, along with China and the United States, is one of the world leaders in hypersonic missile technology.

Lithuania said Russia’s threats were not new and that Moscow had deployed nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad long before the war in Ukraine. NATO did not immediately respond to Russia’s warning. Read more

Yet the eventual membership of Finland and Sweden in NATO – founded in 1949 to provide Western security against the Soviet Union – would be one of the biggest strategic consequences of the war in Ukraine.

Finland gained independence from Russia in 1917 and fought two wars against it during World War II in which it lost territory. On Thursday, Finland announced a military exercise in Western Finland with the participation of Britain, the United States, Latvia and Estonia.

Sweden hasn’t been to war for 200 years. Foreign policy has focused on supporting democracy and nuclear disarmament.

KALININGRAD

Kaliningrad, the former port of Koenigsberg, capital of East Prussia, is less than 1,400 km from London and Paris and 500 km from Berlin.

Russia said in 2018 it had deployed Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad, which was captured by the Red Army in April 1945 and ceded to the Soviet Union at the Potsdam conference.

The Iskander, known as the SS-26 Stone by NATO, is a short-range tactical ballistic missile system that can carry nuclear warheads. Its official range is 500 km but some Western military sources suspect it could be much greater.

“No sane person wants higher prices and higher taxes, increased tensions along borders, Iskanders, hypersonics and nuclear-armed ships literally at arm’s length from their own home,” he said. Medvedev.

“Let’s hope that the common sense of our neighbors to the north will prevail.”

While Putin is Russia’s supreme leader, Medvedev’s comments reflect Kremlin thinking and he is a prominent member of the security council – one of Putin’s main chambers for decision-making on strategic issues.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said Russia had deployed nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad even before the war.

“Nuclear weapons have always been kept in Kaliningrad (…) the international community, the countries of the region, are fully aware of this,” said Anusauskas, quoted by the BNS. “They use it as a threat.”

Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands, displaced millions and raised fears of a wider confrontation between Russia and the United States – by far the world’s two largest nuclear powers. world.

Putin said the “special military operation” in Ukraine was necessary because the United States was using Ukraine to threaten Russia and Moscow had to defend itself against persecution of Russian speakers.

Ukraine says it is fighting land grabbing the imperial way and that Putin’s genocide claims are nonsense. US President Joe Biden has called Putin a war criminal and a dictator.

Putin says the conflict in Ukraine is part of a much larger confrontation with the United States, which he says is trying to impose its hegemony even as its dominance over the international order declines.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Nick Macfie

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