Finland’s blue-and-white Nordic cross flag was hoisted outside NATO headquarters on Tuesday as it became the alliance’s 31st member, in a historic realignment of Europe’s defenses spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
NATO leaders would now turn up the pressure on their awkward allies Hungary and Turkey to lift their block on Sweden joining.
Helsinki’s strategic shift — which ended decades of military non-alignment — has doubled the length of the US-led alliance’s land border with Russia and drew an angry warning of “countermeasures” from the Kremlin.
Photo: AFP
Finland’s foreign minister formally sealed Helsinki’s membership by depositing the accession papers before the Finnish flag was raised between those of France and Estonia to the singing of a choir outside NATO’s gleaming Brussels headquarters.
“Finland now has the strongest friends and allies in the world,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said, had “wanted to slam NATO’s door shut. Today we show the world that he failed, that aggression and intimidation do not work.”
Joining NATO puts Finland under the alliance’s Article 5, the collective defense pledge that an attack on one member “shall be considered an attack against them all.”
This was the guarantee Finnish leaders decided they needed as they watched Putin’s devastating assault on Ukraine.
“NATO membership strengthens our international position and room for maneuver,” Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said.
US President Joe Biden said the alliance was strengthened by its newest member and promised to “defend every inch of NATO territory.”
However, Moscow erupted in fury at the move, which takes its frontier with NATO member states to 2,500km, branding it an “assault” on Russia’s security and national interests.
“This forces us to take countermeasures ... in tactical and strategic terms,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Invaded by its giant neighbor, the Soviet Union, in 1939, Finland — which has a 1,300km border with Russia — stayed out of NATO throughout the Cold War.
Now, its membership brings a potent military into the alliance with a wartime strength of 280,000 and one of Europe’s largest artillery arsenals.
Its strategic location bolsters NATO’s defenses on a border running from the vulnerable Baltic states to the increasingly competitive arctic.
Senior NATO military commander Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer told reporters that Finland had so far not requested its new allies station troops on its soil.
NATO officials say the war in Ukraine has sapped Moscow’s forces, but the alliance is monitoring how Russia responds to gauge its future steps.
Turkey and Hungary, attempting to gain leverage over allies in separate political battles, had delayed Finland’s bid to come under the NATO umbrella — and Stockholm’s progress remains blocked.
However, last week, the Turkish parliament voted to clear Finland’s final hurdle.
Completing the ratification in well under a year still makes this the fastest membership process in the alliance’s recent history.
NATO was created as a counterweight to the Soviet Union at the onset of the Cold War era that began immediately after the Allies defeated Nazi Germany.
Finland’s arrival nevertheless remains a bittersweet moment for the alliance as the hope had been for Sweden to come on board at the same time.
Helsinki’s first act as a new member was to back Stockholm’s bid.
Sweden has upset Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban — one of Putin’s closest allies in Europe — by expressing alarm over the rule of law in Hungary.
It has also angered Turkey by refusing to extradite dozens of suspects that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan links to a failed 2016 coup attempt and the decades-long Kurdish independence struggle.
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