Recently, one of these Russian videos appeared on the Internet, the origin of which remains unclear, but which are a clear threat.

You can see low-loaders that, according to military experts, were transporting a launching pad for anti-ship missiles towards the Finnish border.

According to the geolocation, the video was made near the Russian city of Vyborg near the border with Finland.

To make sure that everyone understands the threat, a street sign was filmed towards the end of the post, with a large sign showing the direction in which the low-loaders were driving: Helsinki.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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Matthias Wysuwa

Political correspondent for northern Germany and Scandinavia based in Hamburg.

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The video is part of a backdrop of threats being built by Russia as Finland and Sweden are increasingly likely to apply for NATO membership.

So far, the two countries are not neutral, but non-aligned.

For both of them, however, the Russian attack on Ukraine has completely changed their security calculations, and trust is gone.

But the fact that more and more Swedes and Finns want to be protected by NATO's obligation to provide assistance does not apply in Moscow.

An op-ed by state news agency Tass published last week emphasizes that Russia is not threatening Finland and Sweden in any way, and laments that “no one in Helsinki and Stockholm cares or cares why Moscow was forced to conduct the special military operation in Ukraine.”

After Moscow had dismissed Western reports about the deployment on the borders with Ukraine and in the annexed Crimea as “hysteria” for months and had asserted that they had no plans for an attack, President Vladimir Putin suddenly ordered the war, which he had described as a “special operation”, as mandatory shown.

Now his apparatus, which was also largely taken by surprise by the war at the end of February, must follow Putin.

There is much to suggest that the Kremlin underestimated the response of the Finns and Swedes to the attack, as well as the resilience of the Ukrainians.

Accession of the non-aligned states to NATO would be another failure for Moscow.

So far, Russia shares a good 800 kilometers of its land borders with NATO members Norway, Estonia and Latvia.

In addition, there are a good 400 kilometers on which the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad borders Poland and Lithuania.

Russia shares a border of more than 1,300 kilometers with Finland.

Instead of achieving a "Finlandization of Ukraine", in Finland and Sweden, similar to the situation in Ukraine after the Russian aggression in 2014, the desire to join NATO quickly matured.

Moscow had found a pragmatic relationship with Finland, whose President, Sauli Niinistö, maintained more contact with Putin than probably any other Western head of state - but who now also clearly and sharply criticized Moscow's actions.

An echo of this old closeness is that another line of Kremlin propaganda now consists of negating the autonomy of the Finns and Swedes and, like the State Department spokeswoman, presenting the accession option as a hodgepodge of “the North Atlantic Alliance under US aegis”.

The Kremlin also sees Nazis in Finland

Putin's staff offers nothing against accession except threats;

probably also because every conciliation in Moscow now has the reputation of treason to the fatherland.

Just over two weeks ago, Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that any expansion of NATO, which is an "instrument aimed at confrontation", "would not bring any additional security on the European continent", was still mild.

Former President Dmitry Medvedev, now Putin's deputy on the National Security Council, said that should Finland and Sweden join NATO, the land borders with the alliance would have to be strengthened, as well as the region's navy.

"In this case, there can no longer be any talk of a nuclear-weapon-free status for the Baltic States," said Medvedev.

You will act “without emotions and with a cool head”.

Moscow will compensate for the weakness of its conventional weapons in the region with nuclear weapons, commented the regime-loyal news portal "Regnum".

Washington (other actors in NATO count for little in Moscow) should not admit Finland and Sweden into the alliance in order to avoid a nuclear conflict.