Russia threatens NATO nations with revenge nuclear strikes as Putin expands military bases along Finnish border

Russia’s former president claimed NATO’s newest members are potential targets for revenge strikes using nuclear weapons in the event of war — as the Kremlin expands its military bases along the Finnish border.Sweden and Finland could be in the Kremlin’s crosshairs for joining Western military alliance NATO following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev suggested, according to the TASS state news agency.“They are part of a bloc hostile to us, which means they have automatically become targets for our armed forces, including potential retaliatory strikes and even a nuclear component, or preventive measures within the framework of military doctrine,” Medvedev, who was in office from 2008 to 2012, said.

“They have simply ended up in the crosshairs of our armed forces.Has life become better for them? No! These are political games,” he said.Stockholm and Helsinki have long warned residents to be ready for war over fears that the two nations would be the next targets of Russia’s invasion ambitions should Ukraine fall.Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin have now expanded their bases along the Finnish border, including in the city of Petrozavodsk just 100 miles from the border, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The bases are meant to serve as a new army headquarters for tens of thousands of troops over the next several years, all for the singular purpose of facing off against NATO, Western military and intelligence officials warned.“When the troops are back [from Ukraine], they will be looking over the border at a country they consider an adversary,” Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies think tank in Moscow, told the WSJ.“The logic of the last decade shows we’re expecting some conflict with NATO,” he warned.

 The fears are further exacerbated by Putin’s call to expand Russia’s military ranks to as many as 1.5 million troops, up from around 1 millio...