Putin warns Finland, Sweden over Nato

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday warned Finland and Sweden to expect a "response" for applying to join Nato as Ukrainian troops reached border after pushing Russian forces back from the northeastern city of Kharkiv.

The expansion of Nato to Sweden and Finland poses "no direct threat for us... but the expansion of military infrastructure to these territories will certainly provoke our response," Putin said during a televised summit meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).

The Moscow-led military alliance includes six countries of the former Soviet Union: Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

"This is a problem that is created completely artificially, because it is done in the foreign policy interests of the United States," Putin said, adding that Nato has become a "foreign policy instrument of one country".

"All this exacerbates an already difficult international security environment," Putin said.

Finland and Sweden are poised to jettison decades of military non-alignment to join Nato as a defence against feared aggression from Russia after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine on February 24.

Finland announced its intention to join Nato on Sunday and Sweden's government formally decided to apply for Nato membership yesterday.

Speaking at the CSTO meeting hosted in Moscow, Belarusian President and close Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko was the only other leader from the six-nation bloc to address the Nato expansion and back military action in Ukraine.

"Nato is aggressively building up its muscles, yesterday drawing in the neutral Finland and Sweden," said Lukashenko, who in February allowed Russian troops to enter Ukraine from Belarusian territory.

He also accused Washington of a "desire to prolong as much as possible" the conflict in Ukraine, reports AFP.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops have pushed Russian forces back from the northeastern city of Kharkiv and some have advanced as far as the border with Russia, Ukrainian officials said yesterday.

The developments, if confirmed, would signal a further shift in momentum in favour of Ukraine.

And in another setback for Putin, McDonald's Corp MCD.N, the world's largest fast food chain, said it was pulling out of Russia because of the conflict.

In Brussels, the European Union was working on a package of further economic sanctions on Russia to step up international pressure on Putin, reports Reuters.

On the battlefields near Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, interior ministry adviser Vadym Denisenko said Ukrainian troops were mounting a counter-offensive.

"It can no longer be stopped... Thanks to this, we can go to the rear of the Russian group of forces," he said.

Ukraine's defence ministry said the 227th Battalion of the 127th Brigade of Ukraine's Territorial Defence Forces had reached the border with Russia.

The governor of the Luhansk region in Donbas, Serhiy Gaidai, said the situation "remains difficult", with Russian forces trying to capture the town of Sieverodonetsk.

He said leaders of the Lugansk People's Republic, the territory in Luhansk controlled by Russian-backed separatists, declared a general mobilisation, adding it was "either fight or get shot, there is no other choice".

In the south, fighting was raging around the city of Kherson and Russian missiles struck residential areas of Mykolayiv, the presidential office in Kyiv said.