The Defense Minister said Russia could retaliate in response to Finland and Sweden’s new NATO membership. Other NATO countries have in recent months publicly warned of Russian aggression and plans to disrupt peace in the region.
“We must be ready for Russia to review its plans and where it deploys its forces in response to Finland and Sweden’s membership of NATO,” Bjørn Arild Gram said in a lecture at the Oslo Military Community Assembly on Monday.
The senior official was referring to the ongoing negotiations for Sweden to join NATO, whose application has been blocked by Turkey and Hungary. Finland became the 31st member to join NATO in April last year, triggering a backlash from Russia, which sees the alliance’s combined military power as a threat.
Gram said the Norwegian Armed Forces must be prepared for the outbreak of conflict. “We must be able to respond in time and together with our allies,” the minister said.
Gram said Norway should increase its investment in national defense.
“There is no indication that Russia will become like us,” the defense minister said, adding that any signs of democracy emerging in Russia are being suppressed.
“The few Russians who try to protest are either put behind bars or sent to war. They are used as fodder there,” he said. “There is no opposition in Russia, there is no freedom of the media, there is no civil society that can ‘somehow stand up to an increasingly authoritarian regime’,” he continued.
This new Russia will “stay with us for a long time” even after its war against Ukraine ends, Gram told the conference.
Last month, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorious warned that Russia could attack a NATO country within 5 to 8 years.
Speaking to German media outlet Der Tagesspiegel, Pistorious said, “We hear threats from the Kremlin almost every day… That’s why we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might one day attack a NATO country,” Pistorious told German media outlet Der Tagesspiegel.
“Our experts predict that this attack could take place in the next 5 to 8 years,” the German minister said.
In December, the head of Poland’s National Security Bureau, Jacek Siewiera, predicted in an interview with Nasz Dziennik that Russia could attack NATO countries within three years.
Siewiera said that an attack on NATO’s eastern flank, which includes Poland, Estonia, Romania and Lithuania, could be imminent and estimated that they had three years to prepare for a conflict.
Micael Bydén, Commander-in-Chief of the Swedish Armed Forces, and Carl Oskar Bohlin, Sweden’s Minister of Civil Defense, warned that all Swedish citizens must be ready for war.
