RUSSIA VOWS ‘MILITARY-TECHNICAL’ RESPONSE IF FINLAND JOINS NATO

The Kremlin, Friday warned it will be forced to take retaliatory “militarytechnical” steps after Finland’s leaders came out in favour of applying to join NATO. Russia’s foreign ministry warned that Moscow “will be forced to take retaliatory steps of military-technical and other characteristics” in order to counter the emerging threats to its national security.

Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto and PM Sanna Marin announced , Thursday that the Nordic country should apply right away for membership in NATO, the military defence pact founded in part to counter the Soviet Union. Media reports suggests Sweden would also make a similar announcement within days. Such an expansion of the alliance would leave Russia surrounded by NATO countries in the Baltic Sea and the Arctic and would amount to a stinging setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said the alliance would welcome Finland and Sweden with open arms.

On the ground, meanwhile, Russian forces pounded areas in Ukraine’s east, including the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, as part its offensive to take the vital industrial Donbas region, while Ukraine recaptured some towns and villages in the country’s northeast. Ukrainian forces, Friday also destroyed parts of a Russian armoured column as it tried to cross a river in the Donbas region.