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Russia says will react to Sweden's NATO membership

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

Russia says the potential accession to the Western military alliance of NATO by Sweden would entail retaliatory measures by Moscow.

“Sweden’s admission to NATO would have military-political and foreign policy steps,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday, Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency reported.

Those steps, she said, “would require necessary response steps from the Russian side.”

Earlier in the month, The Los Angeles Times reported that Swedish politicians were talking of the country’s potential membership in the alliance amid “fear of a resurgent Russia.”

Relations between Russia and the West have been strained since Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea joined the Russian Federation following a referendum back in March 2014. Relations soured further after Ukraine launched military operations in April 2014 to silence pro-Russian forces in the country’s eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

NATO and Russia have been flexing their military muscles in the region, with the Ukraine situation seen as a serious bone of contention.

Earlier in the year, Russia's Ambassador to Sweden, Viktor Tatarintsev, warned that Moscow might react militarily if Stockholm were to join the alliance.

"If it happens there will be counter measures," he said in June, noting, “The country that joins NATO needs to be aware of the risks it is exposing itself to."

Sweden’s cooperation with NATO dates back to its joining the alliance’s Partnership for Peace program, whose stated aim is to create trust between NATO and other nations in Europe, back in 1994.

The country has also had forces enlisted with the alliance’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan since 2006 and in 2011, when Swedish forces joined NATO’s operations in Libya.

A Swedish Air Force Lockheed C 130 Hercules transport airplane takes off at the Kabul International Airport in the Afghan capital on August 4, 2012 (AFP photo).

 

In its NATO Review magazine, the alliance has noted, “This partnership allows Sweden to excel where its strengths are evident, and gives Sweden a place in NATO’s diplomatic and operational settings. Put simply, both sides benefit.”


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