Sweden officially joins NATO, blow to Russia

Sweden officially joined the NATO military alliance (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

According to the news of the foreign news agency ‘Reuters’, the countries with a border of 1,340 kilometers with Russia, Sweden and Finland, joining NATO is the most important increase in the alliance in decades.

The accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO is also a blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been trying to prevent the alliance from becoming stronger.

After joining the alliance, Sweden will also benefit from the common defense guarantee, under which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all allied countries.

The Nordic country will provide NATO forces with its advanced submarines and a large fleet of indigenously developed fighter jets, and will be an important link between the Atlantic and Baltic states.

Russia has threatened “unspecified political and military-technical countermeasures” in response to Sweden’s aggression.

Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership last year, abandoning their Cold War non-military alliance policies in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Finland’s NATO membership was approved in April, while in July Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to send Sweden’s bid to join NATO to his parliament for approval.

Finland’s accession to the alliance marked the end of its period of military non-alignment, which saw it repulse an invasion attempt by the Soviet Union during World War II and maintain friendly relations with neighboring Russia. Started following trying to keep.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted Finland to seek protection under NATO’s collective defense agreement, a move Moscow reacted to with strong criticism.

A Kremlin spokesman said NATO’s expansion was a violation of our security and Russia’s national interests, adding that Moscow would closely monitor any NATO military deployment in Finland.

Moscow said that since the start of the war in Ukraine, the delivery of heavy weapons by NATO countries to Ukraine proves that the Western countries are bent on destroying Russia.