Russian threats drive Finland towards NATO alliance, Sweden is likely to follow suit
Finland’s leaders went out on Thursday to apply to join NATO, and Sweden can do the same within a few days, in a historic transformation on the continent two and a half months after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine sent a shudder of fear. . through Moscow’s neighbors.
The Kremlin reacted by warning that it will be forced to retaliate “military-technical” measures.
On the ground, meanwhile, Russian forces struck areas in central, northern and eastern Ukraine, including the last pocket of resistance in Mariupol, as part of its offensive to take the Donbas industrial region, while Ukraine recaptured some towns and villages in the northeast.
The first war crimes trial against a Russian soldier since the beginning of the conflict began on Friday in Kyiv. A 21-year-old captured member of a tank unit is accused of shooting dead a civilian on a bicycle during the initial week of the war.
The President and Prime Minister of Finland announced that the Nordic country should immediately apply for membership in NATO, the military defense pact that was partly established to counter the Soviet Union.
“You (Russia) caused this. Look in the mirror,” Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said this week.
While the country’s parliament still has to weigh in, the announcement means that Finland will almost certainly apply – and gain access – even though the process may take months to complete. Sweden is also considering putting itself under NATO protection.
This would mean a major change in Europe’s security landscape: Sweden has avoided military alliances for more than 200 years, while Finland adopted neutrality after its defeat by the Soviets in World War II.
Public opinion in both nations changed dramatically in favor of NATO membership after the invasion, raising fears in countries along Russia’s flank that they might be next.
Such an enlargement of the alliance would leave Russia surrounded by NATO countries in the Baltic Sea and the Arctic and would mean a scorching setback for Putin, who had hoped to split and roll back NATO in Europe but instead sees the opposite happen.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that the alliance would welcome Finland and Sweden with open arms.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned that Moscow “will be forced to retaliate with military and other capabilities in order to counter the emerging threats to its national security”.
NATO’s channeling of weapons and other military aid to Ukraine has already been crucial to Kiev’s surprising success in stopping the invasion, and the Kremlin warned again in cold terms on Thursday that the aid could lead to a direct conflict between NATO and Russia.
“There is always a risk that such a conflict will turn into a full-scale nuclear war, a scenario that will be catastrophic for all,” said Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council.
While Russia’s advance in the Donbas has been slow, its forces have gained some ground and taken some villages.
Four civilians were killed on Thursday in three communities in the Donetsk region, which is part of the Donbas, the regional governor reported.
The British Ministry of Defense said that Russia’s focus on the Donbas has made its remaining troops around the northeastern city of Kharkiv vulnerable to counterattacks by Ukrainian forces, which recaptured several cities and villages around the city.
Russian attacks on Thursday killed at least two civilians on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, local authorities said.
The attacks also damaged a building that contained a unit for humanitarian aid, municipal offices and hospital facilities, wrote Vyacheslav Zadorenko, mayor of the suburban city of Derhachi, in a post in Telegram.
None of the sites “had anything to do with military infrastructure,” Zadorenko said.
The fighting in the east has driven many thousands of Ukrainians from their homes.
“It’s awful there now. We went under missiles,” said Tatiana Kravstova, who left the city of Siversk with her 8-year-old son Artiom on a bus heading for the central city of Dnipro. “I do not know where they were aiming, but they were pointing to civilians.”
Ukraine also said Russian forces had fired artillery and grenade launchers at Ukrainian troops around Zaporizhzhia, which has been a refuge for civilians fleeing Mariupol, and attacked in the Chernihiv and Sumy regions in the north.
Overnight airstrikes near Chernihiv in northern Ukraine killed at least three people, the Ukrainian military said. It said Russian troops fired rockets at a school and dormitory in Novhorod-Siversky and that some other buildings, including private homes, were also damaged.
In his evening speech to the nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the abuses.
“Obviously, the Russian state is in such a state that all education just gets in the way. But what can be achieved by destroying Ukrainian schools? All Russian commanders who give such orders are simply sick and incurable.”
Zelenskyy noted that Thursday is International Nurses’ Day and said the Russian military had damaged 570 medical facilities since the invasion began on February 24 and completely destroyed 101 hospitals.
Twelve Russian missiles hit an oil refinery and other infrastructure in the central Ukrainian industrial hub Kremenchuk on Thursday, the region’s acting governor, Dmytro Lunin, wrote in a post in Telegram.
(Only the title and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)