Sunday, April 10, 2022

"Finland and Sweden could soon join NATO, prompted by Russian war in Ukraine"

Although currently both Finland and Sweden are not members of NATO, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine they are now more seriously considering joining and NATO officials have said that discussions have become extremely serious. Public opinions towards joining NATO has also shifted, and Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said that Finland's Parliament is going to discuss NATO membership "within the coming weeks" and hopefully will end "before midsummer". Sweden is also expected to announce their position after a report of security policy is complete near the end of May, but it is possible that they could make their decision known sooner depending on what Finland does. And if they do decide to join, it would be very easy for them since they already meet NATO standards and have a close relationship with NATO. If they do end up joining NATO, it would go directly against what Putin wanted when he went to war with Ukraine in an attempt to stop the spread of NATO. And the Kremlin has said that they would "rebalance the situation" if Sweden and Finland joined NATO. On Friday Finland was also hit by two cyberattacks and an airspace violation by Russia, but Finland has said that they expected those types of attacks but do not think that a sever response from Russia would be likely. 

By: Madelyn Milowski

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/08/politics/finland-sweden-nato-membership/index.html

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