{"id":30665,"date":"2023-04-04T12:53:43","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T12:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=30665"},"modified":"2023-04-04T12:53:45","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T12:53:45","slug":"finland-joins-nato-blow-to-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/04\/04\/finland-joins-nato-blow-to-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Finland joins NATO; blow to Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finland joined the NATO military alliance Tuesday, dealing a major blow to Russia with a historic realignment of the continent triggered by Moscow\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/pub\/2023\/04\/0504FC61-0D4C-4EEE-B397-92D37EDD9260-1024x682.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-30667\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/pub\/2023\/04\/0504FC61-0D4C-4EEE-B397-92D37EDD9260-1024x682.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/pub\/2023\/04\/0504FC61-0D4C-4EEE-B397-92D37EDD9260-300x200.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/pub\/2023\/04\/0504FC61-0D4C-4EEE-B397-92D37EDD9260-768x511.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/pub\/2023\/04\/0504FC61-0D4C-4EEE-B397-92D37EDD9260-750x499.jpeg 750w, https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/pub\/2023\/04\/0504FC61-0D4C-4EEE-B397-92D37EDD9260-1140x759.jpeg 1140w, https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/pub\/2023\/04\/0504FC61-0D4C-4EEE-B397-92D37EDD9260.jpeg 1209w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With the handing over of documents, the Nordic nation officially entered the world\u2019s biggest security alliance, doubling its border with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finland\u2019s membership represents a major change in Europe\u2019s security landscape: The country adopted neutrality after its defeat by the Soviets in World War II. But its leaders signaled they wanted to join the alliance just months after Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine sent a shiver of fear through Moscow\u2019s neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The move is a strategic and political blow to Putin, who has long complained about NATO\u2019s expansion toward Russia and partly used that as a justification for the invasion. The alliance says it poses no threat to Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Russia warned that it would be forced to take \u201cretaliatory measures\u201d to address what it called security threats created by Finland\u2019s membership. It has also warned it will bolster forces near Finland if NATO sends any additional troops or equipment to what will be its 31st member country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Neighboring Sweden, which has avoided military alliances for more than 200 years, has also applied. But objections from NATO members Turkey and Hungary have delayed the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finland\u2019s membership became official when its foreign minister handed over documents completing its accession process to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The U.S. State Department is the repository of NATO texts concerning membership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finland joined the NATO military alliance Tuesday, dealing a major blow to Russia with a historic realignment of the continent triggered by Moscow\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. With the handing over of documents, the Nordic nation officially entered the world\u2019s biggest security alliance, doubling its border with Russia. Finland\u2019s membership represents a major change in Europe\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":30666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[461,12],"tags":[6728,8311,6044,9204,6621,8057,5335,9800,11638,5345,5626,5252,5572,5340,4802,5395,3805,71,3457,5217,5655,1378,9178,2570,5180,694,5251,3954,36,594],"class_list":["post-30665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-world-news","tag-alliance","tag-antony-blinken","tag-blinken","tag-border","tag-europe","tag-fear","tag-finland","tag-finland-nato","tag-forced","tag-foreign-minister","tag-hungary","tag-invasion","tag-military","tag-moscow","tag-nato","tag-neutrality","tag-president","tag-putin","tag-russia","tag-russian","tag-security","tag-sweden","tag-troops","tag-turkey","tag-ukraine","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-war","tag-will","tag-world","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}