Sweden joining is actually going to be really huge, a bigger blow to Russia’s strategic power than anything that could have happened with Ukraine.
The Suwałki Gap is the 65km-long stretch of land in between Belarus and Kaliningrad, which previously was the only NATO-controlled connection between the Baltic states and the rest of Europe. Russia has been using Kaliningrad as a menacing fortress, in the event of war with NATO that gap would become a terrible chokehold that NATO would have had to spend an enormous amount of men and equipment securing. But now that Finland and (soon) Sweden have joined, the Baltic sea has become a NATO-controlled body of water. In one fell swoop:
Russia’s entire Baltic Fleet is now bottled up in St. Petersburg, in the event of war with NATO it’s going straight to the bottom.
Kaliningrad switches from forcing NATO to spend a ton of resources to being a huge and useless drain on Russia’s resources. It’s completely surrounded and serves no strategic purpose any more.
The Russia/Finland border is 1,340 km long and now needs to be heavily defended. There’s a single major road running north/south near it in Russia, vulnerable to being cut along its whole length now, and at the northern end is a bunch of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Not directly related to Sweden joining, but still, it factors in to just how big a strategic setback Russia has just suffered.
All of this because Russia decided to invade Ukraine, which was already a semi-ally even after kicking out Yanukovych, to secure access to Sevastopol for their Black Sea fleet. A fleet that they could have supported from other Russian-controlled ports in the Black Sea, and which would have been largely useless in a war with NATO anyway due to Turkey controlling the Bosporus. If Putin had just sighed, swallowed his pride, and made a new deal with Ukraine to keep using Sevastopol, none of this would happen. Instead Russia is basically ruined.
Sweden joining is actually going to be really huge, a bigger blow to Russia’s strategic power than anything that could have happened with Ukraine.
The Suwałki Gap is the 65km-long stretch of land in between Belarus and Kaliningrad, which previously was the only NATO-controlled connection between the Baltic states and the rest of Europe. Russia has been using Kaliningrad as a menacing fortress, in the event of war with NATO that gap would become a terrible chokehold that NATO would have had to spend an enormous amount of men and equipment securing. But now that Finland and (soon) Sweden have joined, the Baltic sea has become a NATO-controlled body of water. In one fell swoop:
All of this because Russia decided to invade Ukraine, which was already a semi-ally even after kicking out Yanukovych, to secure access to Sevastopol for their Black Sea fleet. A fleet that they could have supported from other Russian-controlled ports in the Black Sea, and which would have been largely useless in a war with NATO anyway due to Turkey controlling the Bosporus. If Putin had just sighed, swallowed his pride, and made a new deal with Ukraine to keep using Sevastopol, none of this would happen. Instead Russia is basically ruined.