At the end of 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that since Finland has chosen the road with NATO, Russia will not sit idly by:
“Now they have dragged Finland into NATO. Did we have any disputes with Finland? All disputes, including territorial disputes in the middle of the XX century, have long been resolved. We had the kindest, most cordial relations, economic relations, everything was developing… There were no problems – now there will be. Because we will now create the Leningrad Military District there”.
And already on February 26, 2024 Vladimir Putin signed a decree “On the military administrative division of the Russian Federation”. According to this decree, the system of army management in Russia will be restructured:
First, the Western Military District will be abolished and the Leningrad and Moscow Military Districts will be reconstituted in its place. They will include the Northern Fleet in addition to land units in its constituent regions of the country. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, additional weapons will be deployed in these military districts of the Russian Federation.
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According to Konstantin Sivkov, deputy president of the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences:
“The creation of the Leningrad Military District is an objective necessity due to the increase by 1300 kilometers of the border contact line between Russia and NATO as a result of Finland’s accession to NATO. In this case, the district is tasked with ensuring the defense of the Leningrad industrial region and adjacent regions of the Karelian Isthmus”.
Secondly, the Southern Military District is expanding to include new regions (Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions, as well as the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics). The capital of the Southern District, Rostov-on-Don, houses the headquarters of the special military operation.
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All this is a response to NATO’s military buildup at the expense of Finland and Sweden, and it is also an expected restructuring of the country’s military command structure to fit the new reality of the significant expansion of Russia’s territory. This decision will allow Russia to eliminate the imbalance between its power and that of NATO, as well as to control the situation in the Ukrainian direction.
