The mother of all backfires

It seems Russia is now quite in a bind. The enemy it sought to weaken may be on the verge of gaining two new allies.

One of the objectives of Russia in invading Ukraine was to weaken a possible NATO position at its border after Ukraine said it wanted to join the group. However, that plan seems to have backfired after Finland and Sweden, fearing Russian aggression, have now voiced their interest in joining NATO.

These are no pushovers. Finland is the third richest country in the world with a small but sophisticated military, while Sweden has one of the biggest populations of billionaires in the world and also one of the strongest air forces.

Finland, which shares a border with Russia, is also no stranger to Russian invaders, considering that the two fought before in the Continuation War, a lesser-known chapter of World War II.

So what now? Considering how Russia President Vladimir Putin has been acting recently we are sure he has not totally put off launching another “special military operation”. Particularly against Finland.

Although this may be highly improbable considering Russia’s invasion force is still tied up in the quickly-developing quagmire that is Ukraine.

Invading more than one country at the same time, is also likely to spark a more vigorous response from the international community than what is being seen now. Then, of course, Russia’s economy may not be able to handle that much war and even more economic sanctions.

While Turkey is currently opposing bringing those two countries into NATO, it may only be a matter of time before those two join. And again, we are not talking about deadweight countries but two that can actually contribute to NATO’s resources instead of draining it.

Russian has already cut off gas to Finland as a result of the developments. Putin’s next move should prove interesting, whatever it may be.