Finland and Sweden were invited to NATO

NATO formally invited Sweden and Finland to join the alliance. About this with reference to the statement of the Union reports Business Insider.

“Today we decided to invite Finland and Sweden to join NATO and agreed to sign the protocols on the entry,” the statement said.

On Tuesday, June 28, the two countries achieved “significant progress” in joining the military alliance, since Turkey stopped objecting against their membership, and NATO announced that the three countries signed a memorandum that confirms Turkey’s intention to support the membership of Finland and Sweden in NATO.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that this agreement "paves the way for Finland and Sweden to join NATO." The potential entry of Sweden and Finland to NATO should serve as a signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Alliance continues to be ready to accept new countries, and Putin himself, who demanded the refusal of NATO to expand, achieved the opposite in Ukraine, he added .

Sweden and Finland in mid -May officially announced that they intend to apply for an entry into NATO. To the decision to abandon the previous policy of neutrality, they were prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

For the country's entry into NATO, all three dozen countries included in the Alliance must support its application.