Question of the day: will NATO be able to make the Baltic their "inland sea"?

As Novye Izvestia has already reported, the new Minister of Defense of Estonia, Hanno Pevkur, in an interview with the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti, announced plans to close the Gulf of Finland to Russian warships. To do this, in his opinion, it will be enough for these countries to create a joint missile defense system (ABM):

“We need to unite our coastal defenses. The range of Estonian and Finnish missiles exceeds the width of the Gulf of Finland. This means that we will unite our missile defense.” When Finland and Sweden join NATO, the Baltic Sea will become the Alliance's "inland sea", - Pevkur said.

In the fall of 2021, Estonia decided to purchase Israeli Blue Spear anti-ship missiles with a range of 290 km for coastal defense. The Finnish military has Swedish anti-ship missiles with a range of over 100 km.

A Finnish newspaper interviewed by Pevkur writes that Finland and Estonia were planning joint coastal defense as early as the 1930s before World War II. By the way, earlier the Baltic Sea was already called “the sea of NATO” by Polish President Andrzej Duda and Latvian Foreign Minister Edgar Rinkevich.

The Russian blogosphere could not but react to these statements. In fact, Russia will lose the opportunity to keep the navy in St. Petersburg. And who, in this case, will take place in the summer with a festive parade along the Neva?

This move would be effectively a declaration of war.

An analyst for the Zemlyanka channel explains that nothing like this can happen, unless, of course, NATO is going to declare a full-fledged war on us:

“The statement of the Minister of Defense of Estonia is either an example of insane Russophobic rhetoric, which has already become traditional for the Baltic countries, or a recognition of readiness to declare war on Russia. The fact is that the external naval blockade of ports, with any interpretation of international legal norms, is one of the classic casus belli. Thus, attempts to put into practice such threats will inevitably provoke a military response from the Russian side.

It is worth noting that the fleets of Estonia and Finland do not have ships capable of establishing and even more so maintaining such a blockade. Accordingly, if we discuss this threat in a practical way, we can talk about a naval blockade by NATO, which will be provided mainly by American or British warships. But here, again, we are talking about a direct declaration of war and the transition of the hybrid military conflict between Russia and NATO into a full-scale one, with all the ensuing consequences.

But even if NATO does not make such a decision (and decisions in the alliance are made by consensus), the threat of military incidents and provocations in the Baltic Sea increases significantly. At the same time, a potential danger is created for the water areas and ports of both the Leningrad and Kaliningrad regions.

Such threats themselves, not to mention attempts to implement them in practice, should entail the most serious diplomatic and military-political response from Russia..."

NATO may win, only Sweden and Finland will not see this anymore

And network analyst Ilya Kramnik is completely sure that the entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO will not only not strengthen their security, but, on the contrary, put it under a permanent threat:

“An interesting, almost textbook example of how joining a military bloc can simultaneously reduce security for both the joining and the member country of the bloc.

Here Finland, which joined NATO, is negotiating with Estonia, which has long been a member of NATO, to create a defense system for the Gulf of Finland - or rather, to integrate its coastal missile systems. The Finns intend to use Swedish RBS-15 missiles for this, Estonia - Israeli Blue Spear, and this will block the Gulf of Finland from both sides, seriously complicating the life of Russian ships in the event of a conflict.

Now let's try to understand what is the mistake of Finland and Estonia in this case?

The logic of Finland and Estonia: The Baltic is NATO's internal sea, we will strengthen our defense by closing it to Russia in case of war with our modern missile systems.

Russia's logic: Is a potential adversary preparing a unified defense system in case of war? Well, then the points of permanent deployment of the new system and reconnoitered positions are taken into account. Since the Baltic route is critically important, we don’t have much operational reconnaissance, high-precision weapons are in short supply, and if something happens, there will be a war with NATO - the target looks worthy of a nuclear strike, the country will not become poorer from a dozen or two tactical charges - it makes no sense to save them will be

And so, what began as a desire to strengthen one's own defense turned into a guaranteed nuclear crisis in the event of practical implementation. (…)

Finnish and Estonian missile men can flatter themselves with the hope that NATO is stronger anyway. It is something stronger, only they will not see the result - Russia and the United States will agree on it, it is possible that right on the wreckage of one of their military bases. Or Polish. Or Romanian.

(...) Maybe these will be military facilities, maybe the exchange of a couple of cities will happen. There are many steps and all are unpleasant. Neither Finnish nor Estonian rocket scientists will know this either. To some extent, they will be lucky - as you know, it is worse than dying in a nuclear strike, it can only be to survive after it..."