MOSCOW, April 4. /TASS/. Russia will take military-technical measures amid NATO’s increasing activity after Finland’s accession to the military alliance and Moscow is ready for risks of changes in the situation in the region, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told TASS on Tuesday.
"From the juridical standpoint, NATO approaches the border of Russia and Finland that is 1,300 km long. This is military-political reality that has to be taken into account in our defense planning and this is what we will do. If NATO’s activity, apparently, increases in the region, all necessary military-technical precaution measures will be taken," the senior Russian diplomat said.
Russia will "keep a close eye" on how Finland’s NATO membership will affect the configuration of forces in the Nordic region, including "in terms of the possibility of deploying foreign forces on the territory of that country," Grushko added.
Finland and Sweden applied to join NATO on May 18, 2022, but Turkey immediately blocked their bids to get into the US-led bloc, demanding that the Nordic countries declare Kurdish organizations as terror groups and extradite individuals accused of terrorism or complicity in the 2016 failed coup attempt in the country.
In order to settle these issues, Turkey, Finland and Sweden signed a memorandum before a NATO summit in 2022, stipulating specific steps that these two Nordic countries should take as viewed by Turkey. The Turkish parliament approved a bill on ratifying a protocol on Finland’s NATO membership on March 30. Helsinki was officially admitted into the North Atlantic alliance as its 31st member on April 4.