War in Ukraine: Finland wants NATO membership “without delay”


The President and the Prime Minister of Finland announced this Thursday at a press conference to be in favor of joining NATO “without delay”.

“Being a member of NATO would strengthen Finland’s security. As a member of NATO, Finland would strengthen the alliance as a whole. Finland must apply for NATO membership without delay,” said Sauli Niinistö and his Prime Minister Sanna Marin in a joint statement. The Finnish president indicated on social networks that he had communicated this decision to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who expressed “all his support”.

The ongoing war in Ukraine most likely hastened this decision by Finland, which shares 1,300 kilometers of border with Russia. According to a poll published on Monday, 76% of Finns say they are in favor of their nation joining NATO, a level three times higher than before the start of the war.

Membership considered a threat by Moscow

“We hope that the national steps still necessary for this decision will be taken quickly in the very next few days”, indicate Mr. Niinistö, regular interlocutor of Vladimir Putin in recent years, and Sanna Marin, youngest Prime Minister of Europe. A large majority of the country’s 200 deputies would a priori be in favor of this membership.

These statements by the Finnish government immediately caused the Kremlin to react, which immediately declared that this membership would “certainly” be a threat. Russia will be “obligated to take reciprocal, military-technical and other measures, in order to put an end to threats to its national security”, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday afternoon.

Since the beginning of the conflict, Moscow has made threats against Finland but also against Sweden, which is also considering NATO membership, claiming that such a process would have “consequences” on their relations with Russia and for European security. The Russian Ministry of Defense had also indicated that Moscow would strengthen its military resources, particularly nuclear, in the Baltic Sea and near Scandinavia in the event of Finland and Sweden joining.

“If we joined (to NATO), my response (to Russia) would be: ‘it was you who caused this, look at yourself in the mirror'”, declared the Finnish president during a visit to the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Support from NATO member countries

Following this announcement by the Finnish government, Democratic and Republican elected members of the American Senate promised to support Finland’s membership of NATO. A two-thirds majority vote of the Senate will be necessary for Washington to give the green light to membership.

France also supported this request from Finland, a member country of the European Union since 1995: “The President of the Republic has indicated that France fully supports Finland’s sovereign choice to quickly join NATO”, said the Elysée after an exchange between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinistö.

For his part, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz “welcomed” Finland’s decision to want to join NATO, and assured his president of the “full support of the German government”.





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