Finland will join Nato on Tuesday in a move that will make the alliance stronger, the organisation’s chief Jens Stoltenberg has said, as Moscow issued an immediate response to the announcement.
“We will raise the Finnish flag for the first time here at Nato headquarters. It will be a good day for Finland’s security, for Nordic security and for Nato as a whole,” he told reporters in Brussels.
The Finnish parliament overwhelmingly approved a proposal to apply for membership to the military alliance in May 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It has a 1,300km border with Russia, meaning Nato’s frontier with Moscow will soon roughly double in length.
“President Putin went to war against Ukraine with the clear aim to get less Nato,” Stoltenberg said. “He’s getting the exact opposite.”
The move has already been greeted coldly in Moscow. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said Russia would strengthen its military capacity in its western and northwestern regions, state-owned news agency RIA reported.
President Vladimir Putin warned last year that any expansion of military infrastructure on their territory would demand a reaction from Moscow.
Finland joins 30 countries already in the alliance and signals an end to its policy of military non-alignment that has defined its defence strategies since the start of the Cold War
Sweden is also on the brink of joining the alliance after its parliament approved plans on 22 March. Sweden can become a full member country once all of the member countries have ratified its application.
What is Nato?
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a political and military alliance of 30 countries.
Nato was set up in 1949 to protect members against the Soviet Union, with 12 nations initially signing up to the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington DC.
These countries were the US, Canada, the UK, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal.
The collective defence clause of Nato’s founding treaty – Article 5 of the Washington Treaty – is a provision that means an attack against one member is considered an attack against all of them.
This is a fundamental part of Nato and why it says it is a defensive alliance.
Nato says military operations are carried out under Article 5 or a United Nations mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organisations.
Which countries are in Nato, and what date did they join?
1949: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the UK, the US.
1952: Greece, Turkey
1955: Germany
1982: Spain
1999: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland
2004: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia
2009: Albania, Croatia
2017: Montenegro
2020: North Macedonia
Source: Yahoo! News
