(Stockholm) Finland and Sweden on Saturday reaffirmed their right to join NATO if ever the two Nordic nations so wished, despite fresh warnings issued by Moscow in the midst of an invasion of Ukraine.
Posted at 11:55 a.m.
On Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned that Finnish or Swedish membership of NATO – which is not on the cards according to Helsinki and Stockholm – “would have serious military and political repercussions”.
A statement to this effect by ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova circulated extensively on social networks, where it was interpreted as a threat of military attack in the event of membership.
“We have heard that before,” Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said on Saturday on public television Yle.
The same words were used by Moscow a few weeks ago when Russia demanded guarantees that NATO would not be further eastward. But also on many occasions in recent years, he pointed out.
Despite the Russian invasion in Ukraine, Helsinki and Stockholm have since Thursday dismissed the idea of an express request to join the Western military alliance.
Since the beginning of the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis, however, have been careful to obtain assurances that the door of the alliance was always open to them.
The two countries are officially non-aligned, although NATO partners since the mid-1990s.
“I want to be very clear. It is Sweden alone and independently that chooses its line in terms of security, ”said Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on Friday evening, when asked about the latest Russian statements during a press conference.
Although non-members, Sweden and Finland had been invited to the NATO meeting on Friday.
Russia has made the issue of NATO’s continued eastward expansion a casus belli, in a case where Moscow claims to have been betrayed since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Even before the invasion, the Ukrainian crisis had revived the debate on NATO in Sweden and Finland, where the left is traditionally very opposed to it and the right more favorable.
According to a poll published on Friday, the support of Swedish public opinion has never been so high in favor of membership in Sweden.
In this study by the Novus Institute for SVT television, 41% of respondents are for membership, 35% against and 24% undecided.