Russia is roaring, but the West is standing tall on Russian revisionism. Sweden abandons neutrality, and officially becomes the 32nd member of the North Atlantic alliance, with POLITICO and other Western media highlighting that the Baltic Sea has turned into a NATO lake. EU and US are sending a clear message to Vladimir Putin that they will not yield to a war criminal, for whom there is, they say, a courtroom at The Hague awaiting him.

The Baltic Sea has now turned into a NATO lake, as the West encircles with a total of eight states the important trade route and headquarters of the Russian fleet in Kaliningrad. The Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania is being isolated, and a “strategic barrier” is being created at the Kremlin’s key port of St. Petersburg.

“The Nordic countries for the first time in 500 years have a common defense. We Swedes must defend freedom together with the countries that are close to us geographically, emotionally and value-wise,” said Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristerson on Thursday during his country’s official accession to NATO.

Advanced military technology, state-of-the-art submarines and the strategically important island of Gotland in the middle of the Baltic described as a “giant aircraft carrier”, just some of the “gifts” that Stockholm brings to the defense alliance.

The accession of Sweden and Finland is a blow for Vladimir Putin, as he also tried to invade Ukraine to prevent any further strengthening of the alliance.

Sweden’s official accession to NATO is a huge blow to the worldview of the Russian President and his plans for world domination, the Daily Mail reports.

Until now, Russian nuclear submarines have had a large degree of freedom of movement along the coasts of Sweden and Finland. Not anymore. Not since Finland joined NATO in April 2023 – and Sweden nine months later.

However, the strategic implications for Putin extend much deeper than the Baltic Sea. Much of Putin’s early economic and military vision for Russia was based on in the development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR). Now, given Stockholm’s accession to Brussels along with Helsinki, the NSR’s key port city of Murmansk is strategically threatened even more.

Before Putin’s war against Ukraine, Russia had invested heavily in the 3,500 miles of coastline that encompassed the NSR. This included building port facilities, amassing a large fleet of icebreakers – and creating a new threat to NATO (especially US) Arctic forces.

Moscow is now developing non-strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus, and restructuring the structure of its armed forces, Lithuanian intelligence reports, with the Baltic developing into the new dynamic front of the Russia-NATO brawl.