Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Finland is "now going to have problems" because it joined NATO, on the same morning that he claimed not to be interested in fighting any NATO members.
Finland isn’t just another NATO member, either. It puts Russia in a hairy strategic position.
In a war directly against NATO, Russia would have had access to the Atlantic through the Baltic Sea by way of St Petersburg. Now, though, NATO controls much of the Baltic Sea, and St Petersburg is in easy striking distance from either Finland or Estonia. It’s also easier to hit the big Russian naval base at Murmansk. NATO can basically bottle up Russia from having any access to the Mediterranean and Atlantic.
Not only that, but NATO has less to worry about for supplying Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Russia could have cut them off between the Kaliningrad exclave and their ally Belarus, but that’s less viable now.
Putin knows all this, and has to calculate what it means for starting anything. He’s boxed in and he knows it. Really shows how much he failed merely by invading Ukraine at all.
Finland isn’t just another NATO member, either. It puts Russia in a hairy strategic position.
In a war directly against NATO, Russia would have had access to the Atlantic through the Baltic Sea by way of St Petersburg. Now, though, NATO controls much of the Baltic Sea, and St Petersburg is in easy striking distance from either Finland or Estonia. It’s also easier to hit the big Russian naval base at Murmansk. NATO can basically bottle up Russia from having any access to the Mediterranean and Atlantic.
Not only that, but NATO has less to worry about for supplying Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Russia could have cut them off between the Kaliningrad exclave and their ally Belarus, but that’s less viable now.
Putin knows all this, and has to calculate what it means for starting anything. He’s boxed in and he knows it. Really shows how much he failed merely by invading Ukraine at all.