RZESZOW, Poland — Russia threatened to deploy nuclear weapons near the Baltic Sea if Finland and Sweden apply to join NATO, but eastern flank allies regard the threat as a laughable effort to intimidate the Nordic states.
“It’s just rhetoric, because they have nukes in Kaliningrad already,” a senior European official said. “It’s just meant for the public, actually, to frighten the public and parliamentarians in Sweden and Finland as well. But they shouldn’t be stupid.”
That scornful response suggests that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reputation for bad-faith threats and aggression is undermining Moscow’s ability to shape the balance of power in the region. A senior Russian Foreign Ministry official warned that Finland and Sweden’s entry into the alliance “will seriously worsen the military situation and bring about the most undesirable consequences,” but a former Russian president attempted to send a more ominous signal.
“There can be no more talk of any nuclear–free status for the Baltic — the balance must be restored,” Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev, whose term as president from 2008 to 2012 helped Putin navigate a constitutional term limit, said earlier Thursday. “Until today, Russia has not taken such measures and was not going to.”
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That’s not true, according to Baltic officials. “Russia’s current threats seem rather strange in particular as we know that, leaving the current security situation aside, they keep those weapons 100 kilometers (62 miles) away from the Lithuanian border,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas told local media. “Nuclear weapons have always been kept in the Kaliningrad region.”
The region has been subject to Moscow since the end of the Second World War, giving the Kremlin a port on the Baltic Sea and territorial holdings that put pressure on NATO. Kaliningrad is separated from Belarus, which is ruled by a Putin client dictator, by a short stretch of territory where the borders of Poland and Lithuania meet. This area, known as the Suwalki Gap, has long been regarded as one of NATO’s most vulnerable points.
“They keep nuclear weapons, delivery vehicles, and have warehouses [in Kaliningrad],” said Anusauskas. “The international community and countries in the region are perfectly aware of that.”
The Russian military’s presence in Kaliningrad is one of the factors that makes Finland and Sweden such attractive potential members of NATO, according to the senior European official. As the alliance stands, the main route to deliver supplies to the Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia — without leaving NATO territory runs through the Suwalki Gap, which Russia could threaten from Belarus and Kaliningrad in a crisis. If Finland and Sweden join the alliance, then the Baltic Sea would be ringed by NATO members, easing seaborne deliveries to the Baltic states.
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“They try to use this threatening rhetoric and use the nukes as threatening rhetoric because it seemed that it worked a little bit in the beginning of this big Ukraine war,” the senior European official said. “So, now they try to use the same card, to mention in a sentence the word ‘nuclear’ and [hope] everybody will pull back. In the West, we should say, ‘Hey, we know you are there already. We have nukes as well. NATO has nukes.’”
