The Foreign Ministry ruled out the Baltic Sea becoming an "internal lake" of NATO

Moscow will not allow anyone to turn the Baltic Sea into an "internal lake" of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO). Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on January 24.

"The use of such terms as 'control' is another evidence of NATO's dreams of turning the Baltic Sea into an inland lake, as they whipishly like to say in public. But <...> this will not be allowed by the Russian Federation," the diplomat said in a conversation with the Rossiya 24 TV channel.

He also added that Russia has enough technical and other means to ensure its security in any scenario. At the same time, the country, as noted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, does not intend to get involved in an arms race.

"We can see: it is both the testing of "Oreshnik", and the reliance on our nuclear forces, and the emergence of new technologies in the arsenal of our Armed Forces, which allows us to be confident that our defense capability and our security will be ensured at 100%," Grushko noted.

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Earlier, on January 23, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that NATO's steps to try to create artificial barriers to navigation in the Baltic Sea are aimed not at improving security, but at deterring Russia. The diplomat specified that the protection of underwater infrastructure is not included in this list.

Before that, on January 20, military expert Alexei Leonkov told Izvestia that NATO countries' attempts to block the Russian Navy in the Baltic Sea would be a pretext for war, for which the North Atlantic Alliance, unlike Russia, is not ready. According to him, the acquisition of weapons, sending ships to the water area for patrolling in a different environment could sound like a regular use of the bloc's fleet. However, now, he noted, the situation there is different.

On January 7, it became known that NATO is going to send a fleet to the Baltic Sea to protect important underwater structures. According to its data, it will consist of about 10 ships, and the operation itself will last until April. At the same time, it was specified that the forces of the Finnish and Estonian fleets would still be involved in the protection of the Gulf of Finland. On January 18, the media reported that NATO warships started patrolling the Baltic Sea as part of the Baltic Sentry operation.