Russia sees no problems with Finland and Sweden joining NATO, Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.
“We have no problems with Sweden and Finlandlike we have with Ukraine,” Putin said at a press conference in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. “We have no territorial disputes (…), nothing worries us in terms of Sweden and Finland joining NATO,” he assured. For Putin, Finland and Sweden “can meet wherever they want.”
But, “in the case of sending contingents and military infrastructure there, we will be forced to respond symmetrically and implement the same threats as in the territories where the summonses against us come from,” he stressed.
Official accession process for the two Nordic countries officially started this Wednesdayat the NATO summit in Madrid.
Putin also denounced NATO’s “imperial ambitions”, which he said seeks to assert its “hegemony” through the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
“The call to Ukraine to continue the fight and refuse to negotiate only confirms our assumption that Ukraine and the well-being of the Ukrainian people are not the goal of the West and NATObut a way of defending one’s own interests,” the Kremlin leader accused.
“The leading NATO countries want (…) assert their hegemony, their imperial ambitions“, pointed out.
According to the head of the Russian state, the North Atlantic Alliance and “above all, the United States needs (…) to have an external enemy so that they can unite their allies.”
While in Ashgabat, Putin denied any responsibility for the attack on a shopping center in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchug that left at least 18 people dead and 40 injured.
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