Sweden officially joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Washington on Thursday (March 7), two years after the Russia-Ukraine war raised security concerns. The war, which started on February 24, 2024, forced Stockholm to rethink its national security policy and decide that support for the alliance was the Scandinavian nation’s best guarantee of security.
However, a report by the Financial Times mentioned that NATO membership may turn Sweden into a logistics hub and a reinforcement route.
The report noted that Sweden includes the island of Gotland, which opens up fresh supply and reinforcement lines. It will allow the NATO nations to use it as a transportation hub, facilitating the defence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. These nations formerly relied on the Suwalki Gap, which is a thin strip separating the Baltic countries from Poland.
As quoted in the paper, Latvian Foreign Minister Krisjanis Karins said, “The Baltic Sea becomes a NATO lake. It reduces the vulnerability of the Baltics through only the Suwalki Gap. The entire security of the region is made stronger because it makes the eastern Baltic less vulnerable.”
The paper further quoted Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt as saying that Sweden and Finland’s membership will also “enable NATO to look at northern Europe as one big region, without a gaping hole in the map”.
Experts have warned that the Ukraine war might spread in Europe, and include other nations as well. It has subsequently amplified the need for NATO’s better control and accessibility in the continent.
Watch: Russia-Ukraine War: Ukraine urges faster delivery of western arms
A Russian military official said that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine may grow to include additional proxy troops in the military confrontation with Russia.
Colonel-General Vladimir Zarudnitsky, who is the chief of the Military Academy of the Russian General Staff, wrote in an article published in the Voennaya Mysl (Military Thought) magazine that the spread of war may lead to a direct military battle with Russia itself, or possibly to a full-fledged war in Europe.
“How the situation may evolve is currently hard to predict, amid the rising controversy that almost always leads to the use of force. The Ukraine conflict could well escalate to include an expanded list of proxy forces being used for the military confrontation with Russia, or even to a large-scale war in Europe,” the Russian general said.
Zarudnitsky cautioned against playing down military threats to domestic security. “In order to weaken our country, the United States and Western countries are making every effort to destabilize the social and political situation in Russia, using religious, ethnic or civilizational strife that may also lead to the use of force,” he warned.
(With inputs from agencies)
