After three decades of military neutrality, Finland officially joined NATO on Tuesday, a strategic move prompted by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Joining Finland, the North Atlantic Alliance doubles its border with Russia.

Finland, Russia’s western neighbor, becomes the 31st member of NATO, and NATO doubled its border with Russia, which thus expanded by about 1,300 kilometers, Sky News writes. This means that Russia now has a land border with six NATO members and a sea border with two. Finland, Norway, Estonia and Latvia share a direct land border with Russia, Lithuania and Poland share a border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, and Turkey and Romania share a Black Sea border with Russia. Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania connect the rest of the alliance’s eastern front, but are separated by Belarus and Ukraine from Russian territory.

Stoltenberg assures that NATO will not station troops in Finland without its consent

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday that the alliance would not deploy troops to Finland “without the country’s consent”, while Finnish Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen said the government in Helsinki had not yet decided whether to ask for a deployment. NATO troops in Finland.

When asked by journalists after arriving at the NATO headquarters, whether Finland will receive the military forces of other allied countries, like some states on the eastern flank of the alliance, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg answered:

• “It’s Finland’s decision if it wants to. Without Finland’s consent, there will be no NATO troops in Finland.”
• “In many countries, we have training, air and sea presence, but we do not have a permanent presence. And this has not yet been the topic of our discussions with Finland,” added the head of NATO.

Responding to a similar question, Finnish Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen said that Finland’s future role in NATO as a member state “is the next issue we have to discuss.”

In 2017, NATO established four battalions in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, with periodic replacement of personnel on a rotational basis. After Russia launched a war against Ukraine last year, four more battalions of the same type were created in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary in February, and the created battalions were brought up to brigade level.

Moscow threatens with “countermeasures”: New aggravation of the situation

Russia will not leave Finland’s accession to NATO unanswered, which would mean a new strain in relations with the North Atlantic alliance, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, promising “countermeasures” and describing NATO expansion as a “security entanglement” with Russia. , reports EFE and AFP, citing Agerpres.

• “This is a new aggravation of the situation. NATO expansion is an attack on our security and Russia’s national interests. That’s how we see it!
• This forces us to take countermeasures to ensure our security,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmytro Peskov said on Tuesday.

He argued that Moscow will act depending on how NATO “exploits Finnish territory” and whether it deploys its infrastructure near the Russian border:

• “We will carefully monitor what is happening in Finland, how it threatens us.
• Appropriate measures will be taken. Our army will react in a timely manner,” said Peskov, indicating that there will be measures capable of ensuring Russia’s security at the “tactical-strategic” level.

Regarding the nature of these measures, Peskov limited himself to the fact that “these will be those that Moscow deems necessary.”

“This creates risks of a significant expansion of the conflict”

For his part, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday that Finland’s accession to NATO creates a risk of a significant expansion of the conflict in Ukraine, reports EFE.

• “NATO implements a set of measures to increase the combat readiness of the United Armed Forces, intensify their combat training and reconnaissance activities near the borders of Russia and Belarus.
• Of course, all this creates risks of a significant expansion of the conflict, but it will not affect the result of the special operation,” Shoigu said to the leadership of the Russian Armed Forces.

Moscow considers the North Atlantic Alliance, led by the United States, to be one of the main threats to its security. Kyiv’s desire to join NATO was also one of the reasons given by Russia to justify its attack on Ukraine.