In response to Sweden’s recent approval as the 32nd member of NATO, Russia has pledged “countermeasures” to safeguard its national security, as conveyed in a message from its Stockholm embassy posted on Tuesday.
Sweden secured its NATO membership after Hungary’s parliament, the final holdout, ratified the Nordic country’s entry. The Russian embassy, via Telegram, stated that “Russia will take countermeasures of a political and military-technical nature in order to minimize threats to its national security.”
The embassy emphasized that the specific nature of these countermeasures would depend on the extent of Sweden’s integration into NATO, including potential deployments of NATO troops, military assets, and weapons in the country.
Sweden, breaking with two centuries of military non-alignment, applied for NATO membership alongside Finland following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Russian embassy acknowledged Sweden’s sovereign right to choose its security policy but warned of negative consequences for stability in Northern Europe and around the Baltic Sea.
The embassy’s post stressed that the Baltic would not become a “NATO lake,” as some observers have described it. With Sweden’s accession, all the countries bordering the Baltic Sea, except Russia, are now NATO members.