(Reuters) – Russia said on Wednesday it would take unspecified military-technical actions and other countermeasures to protect itself from Sweden’s accession to NATO, a move it called aggressive and a mistake.
Sweden overcame a final hurdle to NATO membership on Monday after Hungary’s parliament approved the traditionally neutral Nordic country’s accession.
Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO after Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, triggering Europe’s biggest conflict since the Second World War, a bruising battle that continues two years later.
“We will closely monitor what Sweden will do in the aggressive military bloc, how it will carry out its membership in practice (…) on this basis, we will build our response with retaliatory measures of a military-technical and other nature,” said Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.
“Sweden’s accession to NATO is accompanied by the continuous rise of anti-Russian hysteria in the country, which, unfortunately, is encouraged by the Swedish political and military leadership, but its main source is abroad. It is not the Swedes themselves who are making the choice; this choice was made for the Swedes,” she said.
Sweden’s move to join NATO was fuelling tensions and militarization, she added.
The Russian embassy in Stockholm also spoke of unspecified military and technical countermeasures on its Telegram account on Tuesday, depending on the extent of NATO troop and material deployments inside Sweden.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Russia’s comments were not surprising.
“That’s what they said when Finland joined NATO, too,” Kristersson said, according to the TT news agency, on Wednesday during a trip to the town of Trollhatten in southern Sweden.
“It’s well known that Russia doesn’t like the fact that Sweden or Finland are members of NATO, but we make our own decisions.” He said that Sweden was “alert” to face any response from Russia.
*** Translated by DEFCONPress FYI Team ***