NATO officials told CNN that discussions about Sweden and Finland’s accession to the bloc have become extremely serious since the Russian invasion, and senior State Department officials say the issue The topic was raised at NATO’s Foreign Ministers this week, attended by foreign ministers from Stockholm and Helsinki. .
Public opinion in both countries about joining the defense alliance changed dramatically as Russia’s war in Ukraine began to flare up, with a former Finnish prime minister telling CNN that joining “was a deal.” quite done on February 24, when Russia invaded.”
“If you look at public opinion in Finland and Sweden, and how dramatically their views have changed over the past six weeks, I think that’s another example of this as a strategic failure like how,” a senior State Department official said this week.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Friday that her country’s parliament would discuss possible NATO membership “in the coming weeks”, adding that she hoped the discussions would conclude. ends “before midsummer.”
“I think we’re going to have very careful discussions, but it’s not going to take us longer than we have to because the situation is of course very serious,” she said.
Finland’s ambassador to the US, Mikko Hautala, told CNN that the two countries are working closely together but each will make its own independent decisions.
‘Rethinking the fundamentals’
A Finnish official said on Friday that its country would not seek to join NATO because of “desperation” over defensive capabilities from the 30-member alliance. Rather, Moscow’s actions in Ukraine have forced Finland “to rethink fundamentals.”
“And we understand that our relations with Russia now exist, they cannot be the same as they were before because of these actions of Russia,” the official said.
Alexander Stubb, who served as Prime Minister of Finland from 2014-2015, echoed this sentiment, telling CNN that there has long been tension in the country between idealism – wanting to be able to work with Russia, bordering countries – and realism, which required Finland to maintain a strong standing army in the event of a Russian invasion.
That idealism has now largely disappeared after the Russian attack.
“Finns think that if Putin can slaughter his sisters, brothers and cousins in Ukraine like he does now, there’s nothing stopping him from doing it in Finland. We are simply didn’t want to be left alone,” said Stubb, recalling the Soviet-Finnish Winter War, which lasted from November 1939 to March 1940.
Kremlin Responsiveness
The Kremlin on Thursday said it would have to “rebalance the situation” if Sweden and Finland joined NATO.
“We will have to make our western flank more complicated to ensure our security,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sky News.
Finland was hit by two cyberattacks and a violation of the airspace of a Russian state-owned plane on Friday. Both Stubb and the Finnish official said Helsinki expected such attacks and that they had downplayed the possibility of a serious response from Moscow if Finland, which shares a border of more than 800 miles with Russia, stepped in. enter NATO.
However, some NATO countries are looking into the possibility of Russia launching an attack before Finland comes under the protection of the alliance, according to a European official.
“We would be very confident in the possibility that Russia might try to do something before they join the alliance,” the official said.
And the Finnish official admitted they “have to be prepared, if our country decides to adopt or even if they don’t apply, the situation is not safe, stable. ”
They said there had been signals from other countries that they would assist if there were security concerns in the interim between adoption and ratification of NATO membership.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said this week that “in the interim, I am sure that we will seek to address the concerns they may have regarding the period between potential adoption and potential adoption. upon final ratification.”
The Pentagon said on Friday there was no request for assistance from either country, but “if a country calls and asks for assistance from the United States, we will certainly consider that.”
‘A member who is not a member’
Stoltenberg said that Sweden and Finland “could easily join this union if they decided to apply,” noting that they “have worked together for many years, we know that they meet the standards of NATO on interoperability, democratic control of the armed forces.”
Finnish officials noted that their country was essentially “a member but not a member.”
Separately, NATO and US officials said they would be happy to see Finland and Sweden join the bloc.
These countries already have extremely close relationships with NATO and would be a huge asset, NATO officials told CNN, especially when it comes to intelligence sharing. While the level of intelligence sharing between Finland, Sweden and NATO has increased dramatically since the start of the war, one NATO official said the level of intelligence sharing between the countries is membership of the block is not yet at that level.
One European official noted that Finland and Sweden, if they joined, would both be “net contributors” to NATO, with their supply of advanced fighter jets. Finland already operates the Boeing F/A-18 and has ordered 64 Lockheed Martin F-35s.
Some officials even sarcastically commented that it would be one of the best things Putin has done to bolster European security.
Another senior State Department official told reporters following the Foreign Minister in Brussels for months to come from a NATO alliance that has between 30 and 32 strong members. “How can this be anything but a major strategic mistake for Putin? It’s been a topic of conversation and multiple sessions over the past few days.”
CNN’s Niamh Kennedy, Chris Liakos, James Frater, Oren Liebermann, Barbara Starr and Michael Conte contributed to this report.
