Washington anticipates that NATO will increase from 30 to 32 member-states due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict’s impact on nearby neighbors, including moves by Moscow that have been branded as a “massive strategic blunder,” according to a new report in The Times.
Citing US officials, the British daily detailed that the topic of Finland and Sweden joining NATO was “a topic of conversation and multiple sessions” during talks held last week and attended by both Nordic countries.
Finland is reportedly expected to make a decision on the matter by June, while Sweden will announce its position later in the summer.
“Russia is not the neighbor we thought they were,” Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Saturday, stressing that a decision regarding a NATO membership application must be made “thoroughly, but quickly.”
“I think we will have very careful discussions, but we are also not taking any more time than we have to in this process, because the situation is, of course, very severe,” Marin added.
Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson has said Stockholm will keep an open mind regarding possible NATO membership. At the same time, the country is amid a security policy review that takes precedence, and is anticipated to wrap by the end of May.
“I do not exclude NATO membership in any way,” Andersson said.
The two Nordic nations are said to be working in tandem to build domestic consensus, although their final decisions will be made independently.
Anti-Russian sentiments have grown in both nations as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg readies some 40,000 troops under its command on Europe’s eastern flank. The rise reportedly represents a tenfold increase from the force’s manpower prior to February 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow began its special operation.
Stoltenberg told The Sunday Telegraph that forces will be repositioned to prevent further expansion or invasion. The NATO Secretary-General said such positioning will be “a new normal for European security.”
“Therefore, we have now asked our military commanders to provide options for what we call a reset, a more longer-term adaptation of NATO,” Stoltenberg told the outlet. “I expect that NATO leaders will make decisions on this when they meet in Madrid at the NATO summit in June.”
On Friday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Sky News that the Nordic countries should remember the goal of mutual deterrence.
“Everything is about mutual deterring and should one side—and we consider NATO to be one side—be more powerful than the other, especially in terms of nuclear arms, then it will be considered a threat for the whole architecture of security and it will take us to take additional measures,” Peskov said.