Moscow will respond appropriately to any moves by the US-led bloc in the region, Aleksandr Grushko has said
Russia will do everything necessary to protect its interests in the Baltic Sea amid increased NATO activity in the region, Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Grushko has said.
In mid-January, NATO announced the launch of its Baltic Sentry mission, saying it is aimed at patrolling the Baltic after key underwater cables were damaged in the area last year.
According to Grushko, the US-led military bloc’s “dream” of turning the Baltic Sea into its “internal lake” will not come to fruition, because “Russia will not allow this,” he told Russia 24 TV on Friday.
“We will do everything necessary to make sure that our interests… in the Baltic Sea region are reliably protected,” the diplomat said, clarifying that he was talking about the military dimension.
As for specific countermeasures by Russia, they will be determined based on the activities of NATO and its individual members in the region, he stated.
Grushko expressed doubt that the approximately ten vessels allocated by NATO for patrolling the sea as part of the Baltic Sentry mission will be able to take the area under control. However, he urged that a close eye be kept on the “rhetoric of our rivals” regarding their actions in the region.
Moscow wants “the Baltic Sea to be a sea of cooperation, a sea of interaction, a sea through which trade is carried out via shipping routes that had been running for centuries,” the deputy foreign minister stressed.
Last year, Nikolay Patrushev, the former head of the Russian Security Council who currently serves as an aide to President Vladimir Putin, warned that “the West is seeking to deprive Russia of access to the Baltic Sea.” According to Patrushev, NATO’s newest members – Sweden and Finland – are being used in an attempt to turn it into “the bloc’s ‘internal sea.’”
