U.S. regular troops entered the 15 bases on the border
Reuters reported that the United States has formally signed an agreement with Finland, and the US military will enter 15 military bases in Finland. Now the US military is directly on the Russian border, just 180 kilometers from St. Petersburg. This is an even more precarious situation than Ukraine's accession to NATO, after all, Ukraine is still 1,200 kilometers from St. Petersburg.
According to the "Defense Cooperation Agreement" signed between US Secretary of Defense Austin and Finnish Defense Minister Antti Heikanen, the US military will be stationed in Finland at four air bases, one naval base, and 10 army bases. At the same time, the US military can use the Finnish railway system for military transport.
The US military will also set up a large-scale weapons and ammunition storage system and pre-position weapons and ammunition in the Russian border areas. Once a conflict breaks out, the main forces of the US military will directly airlift personnel to Finland, and they can take out weapons and ammunition and enter a combat state.
With Finland's accession to NATO and the entry of US troops, the line of confrontation between Russia and the US military has now increased by 1,000 kilometers at once. This is a military confrontation line that is nearly five times longer than the 38th parallel.
In order to increase the combat capability of the US military and NATO troops on the Finnish border, Finland will comprehensively upgrade the road system and railway infrastructure, so that the US military and the NATO bloc can quickly and quickly gather troops and equipment in the border areas.
Now, the US military is only a seven-hour drive from Murmansk, Russia's most important nuclear submarine base. The radar and electronic reconnaissance range of the US military's large reconnaissance aircraft and early warning aircraft can already cover the area around the Russian military's most secret nuclear submarine base.
At the same time, the US military will also enter the Rovaniemi airbase in the Arctic Circle, and for the first time, US warplanes can quickly cover the Barents Sea. At the same time, Finland has ordered more than 60 F-35 stealth fighters, which pose a serious threat to Murmansk, the base of the Russian Northern Fleet, just 400 kilometers away.
The US military can use the Rovaniemi airbase in Finland and the Evnes airbase in Norway to launch lightning surprise strikes on the Russian Northern Fleet, especially the Russian nuclear submarine forces. At the first moment of the outbreak of the fighting, a surprise attack on the base of the Russian nuclear submarine.
Strictly speaking, Russia is now really under a military threat from NATO. In February 2022, when the Russian army started a war against Ukraine, Ukraine actually did not have even a single Western tank.
Now, after Finland joined NATO, US stealth fighters, reconnaissance planes, ground forces, and even the naval fleet have directly stood on the border between St. Petersburg and Murmansk, Russia. Russia's second-largest city, the Northern Fleet base, the strategic bomber base and the nuclear submarine base are all within the rapid strike range of the US tactical forces.
The point is that Finland has a terrifying military confrontation line with Russia of more than 1,000 kilometers. Russia has already felt threatened, and it will be up to Putin to suppress the gradual encirclement of the US military.
There are difficulties in fighting the war, the main forces of the Russian army are basically deployed on the Russian-Ukrainian front, and now there are 1,000 kilometers of military confrontation line, how many military bases, how many troops, how many aircraft, how many logistics systems need to be deployed?
The Russian-Ukrainian war has fundamentally changed the situation in the Nordic region, and it was completed in a very short time. As Russia's neighbors, the Nordic and Eastern European countries have made territorial security a top priority for their governments and have adjusted their policies toward Russia.
Only a few months after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Finland gave up 73 years of neutrality, applied to join NATO in May 2022, became the 31st member of NATO in April this year, and took the initiative to open 15 military bases to the US military. The pace is radical and far beyond the imagination of the outside world.
Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war, the US military has obtained the right to use 36 military bases in Sweden, Norway and Finland. This means that the U.S. military has a strong military deployment and weapons mobilization capability in the Nordic region. In other words, after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the US military has added 36 military bases in Europe.
Russia is feeling the pressure to make a big move
Russia is already feeling the pressure to make big moves. Putin has announced that he will establish a new military district, the Leningrad Military District, in the Russian-Finnish border region, along with the deployment of more military forces.
The Russian side believes that the United States will definitely deploy hypersonic and ballistic missiles in Finland. For this reason, the Russian army must deploy tactical nuclear weapons that can strike Finland.
Russia's "Izvestia" reported that the Russian army will also target the United States and deploy the S-500 "Prometheus" air defense system, with the goal of intercepting tactical missiles launched by the US Hippocampus.
The US military is equipping the Seahorse system with high-performance PrSM missiles with a range of 500 kilometers and a strike accuracy of several meters. At the same time, the development of the LRMF tactical missile with a range of 1000 km is also being developed. The system will be equipped with a guidance system that can track moving targets and can be used against moving land and sea targets, such as ships, tanks or groups of equipment on the move.
Now the pattern in Europe has changed, and the NATO bloc used to have two main defense systems. The first is the defense system of Western Europe with Germany as the core, the other is the defense system of southwest Europe with Spain as the core, and now it is possible to build the Nordic defense system with Finland as the core.
At the same time in Eastern Europe there is a Ukrainian forward combat zone and a Polish forward military zone. A new Cold War has actually begun, last time it was the USSR and the Warsaw Pact against the United States and NATO, now it is the United States, NATO, and most of the Warsaw Pact member states and part of the CIS countries have become a camp against Russia.
Russia now actually has only one choice, which is to fight to the end and achieve its strategic goals. German expert Julian Ropke believes that the strategic goal of the Russian army is to take full control of the Donbas region in 2024.
At the same time, it entered the vicinity of the Oster River in the Kharkiv region. In 2025-2026, seize the entire Zaporozhye region, Dnipropetrovsk region and most of the Kharkiv region.
Then the Dnieper became the new dividing line. If the Russian army can achieve this strategic intention, it can use the Dnieper River as a natural risk for defense in the future, and the Russian army will begin to reduce the troops and equipment invested in Ukraine and turn to other directions to confront the NATO bloc.