Russia warned Finland and Sweden on Thursday (April 14) that if they join NATO, Moscow will reinforce the Baltic Sea region, including with nuclear weapons, the Washington Post reported.
Posts tagged ‘NATO Sweden’
BALTIC-2-BLACK: UPDATE – Finland Approved for NATO Membership
UPDATE: Finland becomes newest member of NATO
Finland: Turkey’s parliament ratified Finland’s application to join NATO Thursday (March 30), clearing the way for a country with a longstanding policy of military neutrality — and an 830 mile (1,300-kilometer) border with Russia — to join the Western defense bloc.
NATO rules require all 30 member nations (soon to be 31 with Finland’s entry) to approve any new countries joining. Turkey was the last NATO member to approve Finland. Hungary voted its approval earlier this week, March 27.
“All 30 NATO Allies have now ratified the accession protocol. And I have just spoken with President Sauli Niinistö to congratulate him on this historic occasion,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “Finland will formally join our Alliance in the coming days. Their membership will make Finland safer and NATO stronger.”
A member of the Finnish Navy High Readiness Unit, on patrol with U.S. Marines, during bilateral training on Russaro Island, Finland on August 11, 2022. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Corporal Yvonna Guyette)
NATO rules require all 30 member nations (soon to be 31 with Finland’s entry) to approve any new countries joining. Turkey was the last NATO member to approve Finland. Hungary voted its approval earlier this week. However, neighboring Sweden, which applied for NATO membership with Finland in May 2022, “remains on the outside looking in,” as Breaking Defense put it. However, there is some belief among European sources that Sweden may still get into NATO this year, depending on the outcome of Turkey’s elections in May.
Both Turkey and Hungary are holding out on giving it the green light to Sweden despite expressing support for NATO’s expansion,” the Associated Press reported. Turkey’s government accuses Sweden of being too lenient toward groups it deems to be terrorist organizations and security threats, including militant Kurdish groups and people associated with a 2016 coup attempt.
More recently, Turkey was angered by a series of demonstrations in Sweden, including a protest by an anti-Islam activist who burned the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy.
Hungary’s government contends some Swedish politicians have made derisive statements about the condition of Hungary’s democracy and played an active role in ensuring that billions in European Union funds were frozen over alleged rule-of-law and democracy violations.
“All Allies made a historic decision last year to invite Finland and Sweden to join our Alliance,” Stoltenberg said, adding “Since then, we have seen the fastest ratification process in NATO’s modern history. All Allies agree that a rapid conclusion of the ratification process for Sweden will be in everyone’s interest. I look forward to also welcoming Sweden as a full member of the NATO family as soon as possible.”
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WHY BALTIC-TO-BLACK? Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s brutal continuation of that unprovoked war has rattled it neighbors in both the Baltic Sea and Black Sea regions, prompting several to increase their defense budgets, reinstate a military draft, and send military supplies including air defense artillery and armored vehicles to Ukraine. In the case of Finland and Sweden, two countries with long histories of neutrality in Europe’s hot and cold conflicts, both are seeking to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Western mutual defense bloc. Finland’s was approved March 30.
Here are other recent developments.
AID/ASSISTANCE
Germany, a NATO member, has committed to about 8 billion euros ($8.7 billion) to buy weapons and equipment for Ukraine. German will be releasing a total of about 12 billion euros ($13 billion) related to the Ukraine conflict over the next decade, according to the Aljazeera news site.
Since the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States has provided more than $32.5 billion of security assistance in the form of military hardware and ammunition.
But the United States, its partners and allies also have provided substantial training to prepare Ukrainians to make good use of the equipment that’s been supplied, Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters March 30.
“Since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022, U.S. European Command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa and Security Assistance Group Ukraine have trained more than 7,000 members of the Ukrainian armed forces,” Ryder said. “Just this week, 65 Ukrainian air defenders completed Patriot training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and have now arrived back in Europe.”
Back in December, the Pentagon announced that the U.S. will also provide combined arms training to Ukrainian soldiers using U.S. ranges in Germany. That training has been underway, and some of it is now coming to a close.
“At the close of this month, more than 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers in two brigades — one equipped with M2 Bradleys and one equipped with Strykers — will have completed combined arms training and have returned to Ukraine,” Ryder said.
WEAPONRY
Tanks and More Tanks
Germany and Britain have delivered the first consignment of battle tanks to Ukraine – providing much-needed ground support as Russian forces intensify attacks in the east of the country, according to Aljazeera. The Leopard and Challenger tanks were promised to Kyiv earlier this year and arrived on March 27 in time for an expected spring offensive by Ukraine’s forces.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told journalists that Berlin provided “very modern” Leopard battle tanks to Kyiv with the defense ministry later saying 18 were delivered.
In London, Britain’s government said Ukrainian crews – who have been training to use the Challenger 2 – are now ready to deploy to the front line. The training began shortly after London announced in January it would send 14 of the tanks to Ukraine. The crews learned how to command, drive and “effectively identify and engage targets” the defense ministry said in statement.
Meanwhile, Spain — another NATO member — said it will send six German-made 2A4 Leopard tanks to Ukraine in early April.
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No to F-16s, But Yes on MiG-29s
Top U.S. defense officials told Congress this week that the U.S. would not be providing aircraft—neither manned nor unmanned—to Ukraine anytime soon.
Kyiv has repeatedly asked for F-16 fighters and MQ-9 drones, the Biden administration has declined to do so, arguing the systems would be of limited use to Ukraine in the current phase of its fight against Russia’s invasion, according to Air & Space Forces magazine. Instead, U.S. officials say Ukraine has more pressing needs such as air defense, armor and artillery. They also contend that Russia’s own capable air defense systems would limit the utility and employment of manned aircraft.
A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon takes off on a mission at dawn from Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, Feb. 11, 2014. ( U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Master Sergeant Gary J. Rihn)
“That air domain is a very hostile airspace because of the capability that the Russians have for air defense,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 28.
But Slovakia is sending Soviet Era fighter aircraft to Ukraine, according to Defense News. Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger announced his country will deliver 13 out-of-commission Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine as part of Bratislava’s support to the nation’s struggle against the Russian invasion. “Promises must be kept,” Heger said in a March 17 tweet,, adding that Slovakia’s military aid was designed to help Ukraine defend itself and “entire Europe against Russia.”
The latest move comes one day after Polish President Andrzej Duda declared his country will supply the first four MiG-29 jets to Ukraine soon with more aircraft to be delivered in the future, Defense News reported.
MiG-29 fighter jet. (Photo by Artem Katranzhi from Bakashikha, Russia via wikipedia)
The Polish Air Force has between 11 and 19 MiG-29s in its fleet, according to the president. Duda said Poland’s military will replace the Soviet-made fighters with FA-50 aircraft the country’s Ministry of National Defense ordered from South Korea last September.
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DIPLOMACY
Ukraine Black Sea Grain Deal Renewed, For Now
A deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukrainian grain was renewed March 18, for at least 60 days, Reuters reported — although the extension is only half the intended period — after Russia warned any further extension beyond mid-May would depend on the removal of some Western sanctions.
The pact was brokered with Russia and Ukraine by the United Nations and Turkey in July and renewed for a further 120 days in November. The aim was to combat a global food crisis that was fueled in part by Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine and Black Sea blockade.
(Black Sea region map Norman Einstein via wikipedia)
The deal, which will allow for the continued exportation of crucial grain supplies from Ukraine, had been due to expire on Saturday evening. The shipments from Ukraine are an essential part of the food supply for countries stretching from North Africa to the Middle East to South Asia, CBS reported. Ukraine is one of the world’s largest grain exporters, and normally supplies around 45 million tons of grain, according to the U.N.
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BALTIC-2-BLACK is an occasional 4GWAR posting on the rising tensions between Russia and the West in the regions of the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, where former Russian satellite nations — now members of NATO — border Russian territory. Both NATO, and the United States in particular, have stepped up their presence in the region since Russia began throwing its weight around after annexing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. Since then, some Nordic countries have been boosting defense budgets even restoring a military draft as Russian aircraft and naval vessels have acted more aggressively in the region.
BALTIC-2-BLACK: Sweden, Finland Closer to Joining NATO; Did Russian MiGs Violate Finnish Airspace — Again?
BALTIC SEA REGION UPDATE
Updates with new link to 1949 NATO Treaty and photo of U.S. Marines training with Finnish forces recently.
Sweden, Finland and NATO
The chances of Sweden and Finland joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), have grown stronger with the United States becoming the 23rd member of the 30-nation defense alliance to approve the admission of the two historically non-aligned Nordic states.
In an unusual bi-partisan 95-to-1 vote on August 3, the U.S. Senate approved accession protocols to the 1949 treaty that created NATO, to admit Sweden and Finland as full members of the defense pact. Approval by all 30 current members of NATO is required for any new states to be admitted to the western defensive bloc created to counter the Soviet Union’s expansion, replacing democratic governments with totalitarian puppet regimes after World War II.
President Joe Biden signed the instruments of ratification bringing Finland and Sweden one step closer to joining the NATO alliance.
The Baltic Region. (Map: CIA World Factbook)
During the signing ceremony at the White House, Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin “thought he could break us apart,” but “Our alliance is closer than ever, it is more united than ever, and after Finland and Sweden join we will be stronger than ever.”
The candidacies of the two prosperous Northern European nations have won ratification from more than half of the NATO member nations in the roughly three months since the two applied. It’s a purposely rapid pace meant to send a message to Russia over its six-month-old war against Ukraine’s West-looking government, according to The Associated Press (via NPR).
Finland and Sweden — increasingly disturbed by their Baltic Sea neighbor’s aggressive behavior in the region — simultaneously handed their official letters of application to join NATO on May 2022. NATO heads of state and government extended an invitation to both countries to join the Alliance at the Madrid Summit on June 29. The accession protocols for both countries were signed on July 5. The protocols must now be ratified by all Allies, according to their national procedures, according to NATO.
Seven member countries have to sign the treaty change: the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Turkey. For some of them, like Slovakia and Greece, ratification is only a mater of when the legislature returns to work after the summer, according to analysts at the Atlantic Council think tank. One of the last holdouts is expected to be Turkey, which accuses the two countries of being too lenient toward Kurdish rebel groups it considers to be national security threats. Turkey’s justice minister said in July month that the government had renewed requests for the extradition of terror suspects wanted by his country.
On June 28, Turkey, Sweden and Finland signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding to address security concerns raised by Turkey and lift Turkey’s veto on Finland’s and Sweden’s membership of NATO. However, in mid-July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey can still “freeze” Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership bid unless the two countries take steps that meet Ankara’s security demands. While lifting its objection to Sweden and Finland joining the alliance, Turkey warned that it would block the process if they fail to extradite suspects with links to outlawed Kurdish groups or the network of an exiled cleric accused of orchestrating a failed coup in 2016, according to The Associated Press (via the PBS News Hour).
Based on those considerations, plus how long it took recent new members like North Macedonia (21 months); Greece (8 months); and Spain (also 21 months), “we can expect something like a yearlong process (somewhere between eight and twenty months),” said Rich Outzen, a former State Department official and nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Turkey. He added it could be delayed until “shortly after Turkish national elections in June 2023.”
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Did Russian fighter jets violate Finnish airspace?
While Finland waits to join NATO it reported that two Russian MiG-31 fighter jets are suspected of violating Finnish airspace near the coastal city of Porvoo on the Gulf of Finland.
The jets were westbound, the defence ministry’s communications chief Kristian Vakkuri said, adding the aircraft were in Finnish airspace for two minutes.
A MiG-31 in flight over Russia, 2012 (Photo copyright by Dmitriy Pichugin via wikipedia) Please click on the photo to enlarge image.
The Finnish air force sent up “an operational flight mission” and identified the MiG-31 jets and the Border Guard launched an investigation into the violation, Aljazeera reported.
Finland, which shares a 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) eastern border with Russia, reversed decades of military non-alignment by seeking membership in the North Atlantic alliance in May, after being rattled by Moscow’s attack on Ukraine, according to Aljazeera, which has a very good map of NATO countries, Sweden, Finland and Ukraine at this link.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Defense Department has for years considered Finland to be — if not an ally, a partner nation — and conducted joint and multilateral training exercises with Finnish military units. Recently an element of the U.S. 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) conducted bilateral training with the Finnish Navy High Readiness Unit on Finland’s Russaro Island.
A member of the Finnish Navy High Readiness Unit directs his fire team during a patrol with U.S. Marines in bilateral training on Russaro Island, August 11, 2022. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Corporal Yvonna Guyette) Click on photo to enlarge.
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BALTIC-2-BLACK is an occasional 4GWAR posting on the rising tensions between Russia and the West in the regions of the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, where former Russian satellite nations — now members of NATO — border Russian territory. Both NATO, and the United States in particular, have stepped up their presence in the region since Russia began throwing its weight around after annexing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. Since then, some Nordic countries have been boosting defense budgets even restoring a military draft as Russian aircraft and naval vessels have acted more aggressively in the region.
FRIDAY FOTO (May 20, 2022)
ALREADY THERE.
(U.S. Army photo by Specialist Elizabeth MacPherson) Click to enlarge
Another U.S. Army armored convoy of Stryker armored vehicles transiting a Pennsylvania highway? Nope. Germany? Guess again. If you have trouble reading the blue road sign on the right side of the photo, one reason could be because it’s in Finnish.
This is Outlaw Troop, 4th Squadron of the 2d Cavalry Regiment, leading a convoy from Niinisalo Training Area, Finland as part of Exercise Arrow on May 8, 2022.
Finland is not a member of NATO, yet, but the Finns, and their neighbors the Swedes, have been participating as partner nations in joint exercises with NATO forces for years. Nevertheless, both Finland and Sweden — while not neutral — have been firmly nonaligned with NATO, the Soviet Union or Russia until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 “upended their thinking about security,” according to The Washington Post. Both Nordic countries are already members of the European Union.
Moscow has objected to widening NATO’s membership, especially to include countries like Finland that have long borders with Russia. But as this week’s FRIFO shows, troops from the United States and other NATO states are already training on Finnish soil.
Finland and Sweden submitted their applications to join NATO on May 18. “You are our closest partners. And your membership in NATO would increase our shared security,”
Exercise Arrow is an annual, multinational exercise taking place in Finland, where visiting NATO forces from the United States, United Kingdom, Latvia, and Estonia, train together with Finnish Defense Forces.
Training operations include high intensity force-on-force engagements and a live fire exercise. The purpose of the exercise to enhance mechanized units operational and procedural performance, develop interoperability with participating forces and demonstrate the ability to cooperate with partners.
BALTIC-2-BLACK: Sweden, Finland Move Closer to NATO Membership; Russia Blusters and Threatens
Sweden, Finland and NATO.
The Nordic nations of Sweden and Finland, neutral during the Cold War, have been moving closer to NATO — participating in multi-national exercises with the forces of the western alliance — since Russia seized Crimea and grew increasingly belligerent in its military moves both on and above the Baltic Sea.
Russia’s February 24 invasion of non-NATO member Ukraine alarmed the Eastern members of NATO who used to be under the sway of Moscow — like Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic — to spend more on their defense forces and participate in more NATO exercises.Several are also supplying arms, medical equipment and technology to embattled Ukraine.
Finnish Troops participate in Exercise Cold Response 2022, a multinational Arctic weather military exercise hosted by Norway between March 14 and March 31. (Maavoimat – Armén – The Finnish Army, photo via Facebook)
The war in Ukraine pushed leaders in Sweden and Finland to publicly announce plans to consider joining the 30-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization — where an attack on one means an attack on all.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused Finland to review our security strategy,” Prime Minister Sanna Marin said at a joint press conference in Stockholm on April 13 hosted by Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. “I won’t offer any kind of timetable as to when we will make our decision, but I think it will happen quite fast. Within weeks, not within months. The security landscape has completely changed.”
Finland, which shares an 830-mile border with Russia, is “highly likely” to join NATO despite the Russian government’s threats to deploy nuclear weapons, Finnish Minister for European Affairs Tytti Tuppurainen said in an interview with Sky News Friday.
“The people of Finland, they seem to have already made up their mind,” Tuppurainen told Sky News, noting that polls show overwhelming support for joining NATO.
The Finnish government is expected to submit a report to parliament on the changed security environment by the end of this month, kicking off a debate and eventually a recommendation on applying for NATO membership, according to Axios.
Meanwhile, Sweden has decided to examine a range of security-related options, including deepening Nordic defense cooperation and urging the European Union to develop enhanced defense policies to offer greater military protection to EU member states that border the highly sensitive Baltic Sea and High North regions, Defense News reports.
The Swedish government is expected to deliver its National Security Report to the Riksdag, the country’s legislature, before May 31.
“What we need to do is to carefully think through what is in the best long-term interests of Sweden, and what we need to do to guarantee our national security, our sovereignty and secure peace in this new heightened tension and situation,” said Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson.
“Russia’s invasion has dramatically changed the political discourse in Sweden and Finland and also crucially public opinion,” Alistair Shepherd, senior lecturer for European security at Aberystwyth University, told Al Jazeera.
There are indications both Finland and Sweden are heading towards a genuinely historic change of course in their respective security policies. During the Cold War, Sweden and Finland were essentially considered neutral states, although for different reasons.
“Sweden’s neutrality was much more part of their national identity, whereas Finland’s neutrality was more pragmatic and virtually forced upon them by the Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance signed between Finland and the USSR in 1948,” said Shepherd.
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Moscow Reacts with Threats
The threat came just a day after Finnish officials suggested their country could request to join NATO within weeks, while Sweden mulled making a similar move.
Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said that NATO expansion would lead Moscow to strengthen air, land and naval forces to “balance” military capability in the region.
“If Sweden and Finland join NATO, the length of the land borders of the alliance with the Russian Federation will more than double. Naturally, these boundaries will have to be strengthened,” he wrote on Telegram. “There can be no more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic — the balance must be restored,” Medvedev added.
Even before his invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Sweden and Finland of “retaliation” should they join NATO.
The New York Times notes that “if his invasion of Ukraine has succeeded at anything so far, it has been to drive the militarily nonaligned Nordic countries into the arms of NATO, as Russian threats and aggression heighten security concerns and force them to choose sides.
Finland and Sweden’s shift to NATO membership “would be another example of the counterproductive results of Mr. Putin’s war. Instead of crushing Ukrainian nationalism, he has enhanced it. Instead of weakening the trans-Atlantic alliance, he has solidified it. Instead of dividing NATO and blocking its growth, he has united it,” the Times observed April 13.
More that 1,600 Swedish troops and civilian personnel participated in Exercise Cold Response 2022, Norway’s multi-national Arctic military training exercise. (Swedish Armed Forces photo by Mats Carlsson/Försvarsmakten)
4GWAR 