{"id":253450,"date":"2022-05-14T06:33:10","date_gmt":"2022-05-14T06:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=253450"},"modified":"2022-05-15T07:07:27","modified_gmt":"2022-05-15T07:07:27","slug":"baltic-sea-becomes-nato-sea-eu-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=253450","title":{"rendered":"Baltic Sea \u2018becomes NATO sea\u2019 \u2013 EU member"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>RT \u2013 May 13, 2022<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics has said his country approves of Finland and Sweden joining NATO, noting that their addition to the alliance turns the Baltic Sea into \u201c<em>a NATO sea<\/em>\u201d in a Friday interview with the Financial Times.<\/p>\n<p>Along with his counterparts in Estonia and Lithuania, Rinkevics expressed his eagerness to ratify the membership applications of the two Nordic countries. All three told the Times they would benefit from Finland and Sweden\u2019s military strength, particularly Finland\u2019s US fighter jet fleet.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his unmitigated support for the accession of Russia\u2019s northern neighbors to NATO, however, Rinkevics is hoping for more NATO troops in his country. The transformation of the Baltic into a NATO asset \u201c<em>does not change our demands for NATO increase in [the] Baltic region<\/em>,\u201d the FM said, adding that \u201c<em>there are still issues to be addressed<\/em>\u201d and that \u201c<em>the current security situation requires bolder plans by the alliance.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While NATO sent 1,000 extra troops each to Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania from European member states earlier this year, the countries have demanded more, calling for brigades of 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers and an air defense upgrade that would let them shoot down Russian planes in case of aggression.<\/p>\n<p>Before the invasion of Ukraine, the Baltics claimed to be concerned about Russia potentially invading their region via the Suwalki gap, the comparatively short (65km) border region between Poland and Lithuania sandwiched between Belarus and Russia\u2019s Kaliningrad province, also located on the newly-christened \u201c<em>NATO sea<\/em>.\u201d All three nations are reportedly increasing their defense spending to 2.5% of GDP, compared to the NATO requirement of 2%.<\/p>\n<p>Russia warned on Thursday that Finland joining NATO would pose a direct threat and require a response from Moscow following the country\u2019s announcement that it planned to seek such membership with an eye toward submitting a formal application as soon as next Monday. Finland shares an 833-mile (1,340-kilometer) land border with Russia and while Helsinki has admitted that its neighbor poses no direct threat, membership in the bloc represents a direct escalation, placing a hostile alliance directly on Russia\u2019s border.<\/p>\n<p>Sweden reportedly plans to make its own formal request to join NATO next week, though some factions of the government are more enthusiastic than others regarding the prospect.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/russia\/555457-latvia-nato-sea-baltic-finland\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a loose knit military alliance builds around Russia\u2019s western borders, Latvia\u2019s foreign minister hails Finland and Sweden\u2019s plans to join NATO. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=253450"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253453,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253450\/revisions\/253453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}