- This content has occurred in Russia, where the law restricts coverage of Russian military operations in Ukraine.
MOSCOW, June 29 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russia would respond in kind if NATO deployed troops and infrastructure to Finland and Sweden after joining the US-led military alliance.
“With Sweden and Finland, we don’t have the problems we have with Ukraine. They want to join NATO, go ahead,” Putin told Russian state television after talks with regional leaders of the former Soviet state of Ukraine. Turkmenistan of Central Asia.
“But they must understand that before there was no threat, while now, if military contingents and infrastructures are deployed, we will have to respond in kind and create the same threats to the territories from which the threats to We”.
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He said it was inevitable that Moscow’s relations with Helsinki and Stockholm would worsen due to its membership in NATO.
“Everything went well between us, but now there could be some tensions, for sure there will be,” he said. “It’s inevitable if there’s a threat to us.”
Putin made his comment a day after NATO member Turkey lifted its veto on Finland and Sweden’s offer to join the alliance after the three nations agreed to protect each other. Read more
The move means Helsinki and Stockholm can continue their bid to join NATO, marking the biggest change in European security in decades.
Putin added that the goals of what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine remained unchanged, that its goal was to “liberate” the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, and create conditions for ensure the security of Russia.
He said Russian troops had advanced into Ukraine and that military intervention was going as planned. There was no need, he said, to set a deadline to end the campaign.
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Reuters report Edited by Ron Popeski and Deepa Babington
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