Vladimir Putin pushes Finland and Sweden into NATO

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The irruption of the Russian army in Ukraine to supposedly prevent it from entering NATO has pushed

to the gates of the Atlantic Alliance: Sweden and Finland are preparing to apply for membership in the short term.

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin says she will announce the decision "not in months but in weeks."

"Everything changed when Russia invaded Ukraine, many people have changed their minds, and we have to discuss our security options, we are going to debate these different variants in parliament to achieve the widest possible consensus, which is very important because we have a close neighbor Russia that acts in this way," Marin told reporters.

It seems that the Swedes, always a bit more jealous of their neutrality, will this time follow the Finns to the end.

"Sweden's Prime Minister, Magdalena Andersson, has already made the decision on joining NATO and her government will present the subsequent application at the Alliance summit to be held in Madrid at the end of June," reported the Swedish newspaper ' Svenska Dagbladet'.

Both spoke this Wednesday in Stockholm about

the Atlantic Alliance.

Finland and Sweden began to talk about the possibility of abandoning their long-term neutrality and joining the bloc before the Russian military operation in Ukraine.

And even then Moscow warned these two Nordic countries of "serious political and military consequences" and also "retaliation" if they joined NATO.

Given the

, which were invaded by Russia once, suggesting that they would one day join NATO, the question now within the Alliance is what kind of security guarantees could be provided to Finland and Sweden in the period before the ratification.

Some analysts point out that NATO would have to move quickly to draw up defense plans for both countries before their membership.

Putin's aggression against Ukraine has caused a dizzying turn in public opinion in Finland.

It also changed the mind of the main opposition party.

Finns Party leader

has spoken out in favor of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after seeing Russian soldiers advancing through Ukraine.

"In February not only the European security order collapsed, but also the entire foundation of Finnish-Russian relations. This time it was Ukraine, but everyone knows it could also be Finland. I am forced to reconsider my position." and I support Finland's entry into NATO and support the country's leaders in promoting this membership," Purra wrote on his personal blog on March 29.

NATO has said that its door is open.

In January, its secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, assured that Sweden and Finland largely meet the criteria of the Atlantic Alliance and could soon join the war bloc if they make that decision.

Both should then ratify the agreement internally.

They would be in NATO in a year or so.

This was the case in the last accession, that of

.

A PROVOCATION FROM THE USA

For Russia, these announcements of entry into NATO are unintelligent and unfounded, declared the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry,

, after learning of the meeting between the two prime ministers.

"The statements are a kind of propaganda and provocation, they do not respond to the interests of the peoples of these countries, but serve the interests of the Atlantic Alliance, led by the United States," she told the Russian agency Sputnik.

On February 25, with Ukraine already under attack, Russia announced that it would take action in response to the possible admission of Sweden and Finland to NATO.

"The Alliance itself represents a tool to provoke confrontation, it is not a military bloc that guarantees peace and stability, and further expansion of the Alliance will not bring additional security to the European continent," said the Kremlin spokesman, Dimitri Peskov.

.

But on its northern flank it looks like the opposite is going to happen: more NATO countries on Russia's borders.

Today the majority of Finns support the idea of ​​joining NATO, according to a survey conducted by the company Corefiner at the request of the television channel MTV3.

The survey was conducted on the Internet from April 6 to 11, when the massacres in Ukrainian cities were already known.

"What they did in Bucha, they will do in your cities," Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky said in a message to the Finnish parliament last week.

, 20% are undecided, and 12% are against it.

In Sweden, according to 'The New York Times', support is 50% in favor of NATO.

But it goes up to 62% if Finland also enters at the same time.

The road to NATO may not be easy.

The Finnish Intelligence Service considers

and its espionage services to be the biggest threats to the country's national security.

It seemed more difficult until recently to get accession under way in Sweden, which has a minority government led by the Social Democrats, whose formal position of military non-alignment was ratified at their party's congress in November.

But according to the local press, the Swedish Social Democratic Party will hold a special meeting on May 24, at which a decision could be made on its support for the NATO membership plan.

Sweden has always linked its security to that of Finland, so many analysts assume that if Finland enters, Sweden will follow.

The Soviet Union attacked Finland last century, waging the so-called

.

Finland embraced neutrality to maintain its integrity during the Cold War.

Now Swedes and Finns are exposed, at the very least, to internet outages, cyberattacks on ministries and disinformation maneuvers in the coming months.

It is the risk if they decide to leave a neutrality that many consider expired and precarious in a continent that is no longer a safe place.

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