Finland will join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) this Tuesday, April 4, reported the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, a decision considered a threat by Russiawhich announced that it plans to strengthen its military capacity near the Nordic country.
“It will be a historic week. Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will raise the Finnish flag at the headquarters in Brussels and (the country) will become a member of the alliance,” Stoltenberg told reporters.
Finland’s accession process, the Norwegian official noted, has been “the fastest in modern NATO history.” The move to be completed on Tuesday “will make Finland safer and NATO stronger,” Stoltenberg added.
On the contrary, Russia perceives this accession as a threat to its security. “We will strengthen our military capabilities in the west and northwest,” that is, close to the border with Finland and other Eastern European countries, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Gruchko said.
“In the event of deployment of soldiers and means by parts of other NATO members on Finnish territory, we will take other measures to guarantee Russia’s military security,” Gruchko added, according to his statements quoted by the Russian news agency Ria Novosti.
After the start of the Russian military invasion of Ukraineon February 24, 2022, Finland and Sweden submitted their NATO membership applications to Stoltenberg on May 18.
The two Nordic countries signed the protocols for joining the war bloc on July 5, 2022, which had to be ratified by the 30 member countries.
Turkey and Hungary have been delaying the ratification process, but softened their stance on Finland’s membership in early March, and on March 31, the Turkish parliament endorsed Helsinki’s membership in the alliance.
It is still unpredictable if Sweden will suffer the same fate, since the Turkish government demands that it extradite suspected Kurdish terrorists and strengthen its commitment against these groups.
Moscow assured in March that it does not represent any “threat” to these two Scandinavian countries and that it had “no conflict” with them.
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin considers that the expansion of NATO in countries bordering Russia represents a threat to Moscow and this was one of the reasons used to justify military intervention in Ukraine.
