Finland, Sweden can reportedly join NATO this summer
Finland and Sweden are ready to join NATO as early as this summer, a move that a US official said stemmed from Russia’s “massive strategic mistake” in invading Ukraine, according to a report published on Monday. .
Membership of the two Nordic countries in the Atlantic Alliance was a “conversation and several sessions” last week during meetings with NATO foreign ministers in which representatives from Stockholm and Helsinki participated. Times of London reported.
Finland is expected to submit an application in June, and Sweden will follow shortly, according to the report.
The addition of Sweden and Finland would increase alliance membership to 32 countries – and expand its border with Russia by hundreds of miles.
“How can this be anything other than a massive strategic blunder for Putin?” A senior US official told the newspaper.
“Sweden and Finland would be real feathers in NATO’s hat as a net contributor. They are real players, “a European diplomat told the Times, noting that adding both countries would help expand the alliance’s capabilities, including intelligence gathering and air force.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said it was time for her country to reconsider joining NATO and urged the alliance to consider possible applications “thoroughly but quickly.”
“Russia is not the neighbor we thought it was,” Marin said earlier this month, adding: “I think we will have very thorough discussions, but we do not take longer than we have to in this process, because the situation is, of course, very serious. “
Stockholm follows Helsinki’s timetable and conducts a security policy review, which is expected to be completed by the end of May. .
– I do not rule out membership in NATO in any way, said Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson at the end of March.
The Kremlin struck Finland and Sweden on Monday in response to the report.
“We have repeatedly said that the alliance remains a tool focused on confrontation and that its further expansion will not bring stability to the European continent,” Moscow spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Finland, which shares an 830-kilometer border with Russia, has been rattled by the invasion of Ukraine and has recently increased its defensive position along the border.
By breaking with its long tradition of neutrality between Russia and the West, Finland also said at the end of February that it would provide Ukraine with military weapons.
Public opinion in Finland has swung to join NATO since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, with votes shows that 62% of Finns want to join the alliance from mid-March, up from 53% in February.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said at the weekend that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had created “a new reality, a new standard for European security” and announced that the alliance planned to station a permanent military force at its borders to prevent further Russian territorial ambitions.