(ANSA) - ROME, June 30 - Russia will respond in the same way if NATO will deploy troops and infrastructure in Finland and Sweden after they join the US-led military alliance, President Vladimir Putin said.
"Sweden and Finland want to join NATO? What do they do", Putin reiterated - quoted by the Guardian - on Russian state TV, underlining however how "they must understand that before there was no threat, while now if the military contingents and infrastructures will be deployed there we will have to respond in a similar way and create equal threats for the territories from which they are threatened against us ".
The Russian president then said that it will be inevitable that Moscow's relations with Helsinki and Stockholm will intensify due to their membership of NATO.
"Everything went well between us, but now there may be tensions. Of course there will be: it is inevitable if there is a threat to us," Putin said.
(HANDLE).
