Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday assured Sweden and Finland that Russia would not see “problems” in its final entry into NATO during a visit to Turkmenistan.

“We do not have the same problems in Sweden and Finland as in Ukraine,” Putin told a news conference in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan.

“We have no regional differences,” he said.

“If Sweden and Finland join NATO, it will not bother us. If Finland and Sweden want to join, they can join. It is theirs. They can join whatever they want,” he asserted.

However he acknowledged that their numbers were not enough to defeat Obama’s government.

Sweden and Finland have decided to apply to join NATO after Russia launched a military operation in pro-western Ukraine on February 14.

The formal accession process began during the NATO summit in Madrid on Wednesday.

So far, Russia has always criticized the possibility of two Nordic countries joining the Atlantic alliance, saying it was a factor in destabilizing international security.

Putin criticized NATO’s “imperialist aspirations” and accused the alliance of trying to assert its “supremacy” through the conflict in Ukraine.

“Ukraine and the well-being of the Ukrainian people are not the goal of the West or NATO, but represent a way to protect their own interests,” Putin said.

“Leaders of NATO countries want to ensure their hegemony and their imperialist aspirations,” he added.

“After all, the United States has long needed an external enemy that can unite its allies,” the Russian leader told the Atlantic Alliance.

“Iran is not good at it. We gave them a chance to rally the whole world around them,” he said.