RUSSIA will ramp up its military presence in the country’s north-west after Finland joins Nato tomorrow, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said today.

Mr Grushko said more Russian forces would be deployed in the area and further measures would be announced if Nato deploys non-Finnish troops on Finnish territory. The Finnish border lies close to Russia’s second city St Petersburg.

The Scandinavian country will become the US-led alliance’s 31st member, joining ahead of its neighbour Sweden, whose application is still being held up by Turkey and Hungary.

But Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said he had high hopes Sweden would be a member soon as he praised a “historic week” for the pact, originally founded in the 1940s to keep “the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down” across Europe according to its first secretary-general Hastings Ismay.

Finland’s accession comes as voters ousted Social Democrat Prime Minister Sanna Marin in the weekend’s election. The party came third after the conservative National Coalition and the nationalist Finns party. All three support Nato membership.