Russia’s aggressive policy promoted by Vladimir Putin and, in particular, Moscow’s hints of readiness to use atomic weapons, are pushing the decisions of Helsinki and Stockholm to join NATO.
Russia’s aggressive policy promoted by Vladimir Putin and, in particular, Moscow’s hints of readiness to use atomic weapons, are pushing the decisions of Helsinki and Stockholm to join NATO.
It is reported by “Voice of America”.
“I don’t think that Finland and Sweden would have joined NATO if Putin had not attacked Ukraine… If he wanted to prevent Finland and Sweden from joining NATO, he failed,” said former Finnish Prime Minister Alex Stubb.
In turn, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, Sweden and Finland are moving together to join NATO and are in fact in a hurry because of the current Russian attack, as well as under the pressure of the bloody lessons of history.
“Mr. Putin started this war in the same way and for the same purpose as Hitler attacked Poland in 1939. Hitler did not want to see the existence of Poland, and Putin wants to get rid of Ukraine,” Bildt said during a discussion at the Kyiv Security Forum on May 8.
In addition, Alex Stubb, in a report in the Financial Times published a day before Finnish President Sauli Niinisto’s expected announcement of the country’s intentions towards NATO, wrote: “If Putin can massacre his Slavic brothers and sisters in Ukraine, then nothing will stop him . from the same actions somewhere”.
Stubb argues that during the Cold War, Finland’s neutrality and non-alignment was forced, while “Sweden’s tradition of neutrality is longer and more ideological.”
“But when realities change, both countries adapt. After all, security is a matter of reality, not ideology,” writes Alex Stubb, noting that public opinion has now leaned sharply in favor of joining NATO.
