Nordic states set for Nato membership
HELSINKI/KYIV: Finland said yesterday it intended to apply to join Nato without delay, a major policy shift triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Sweden is also close to asking to join Nato after decades of taking a neutral path.
The announcement is a big setback for Russia, which partly tried to justify its invasion of Ukraine as a means to protect itself from Nato's eastwards expansion.
Nato allies expect Finland and Sweden to formally apply to join the alliance in the coming days and will grant membership quickly, five diplomats and officials said.
The Finnish parliament will debate the announcement on Monday, but there is wide support for it.
‘‘Finland must apply for Nato membership without delay,’’ President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin said in a joint statement in Helsinki.
‘‘We hope that the national steps still needed to make this decision will be taken rapidly within the next few days.’’
Finland, which shares a 1300km border and a pre1945 history of conflict with Russia, has gradually stepped up cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as a partner since Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014.
Norway, Denmark and the three Baltic states are already Nato members.
The Kremlin said yesterday Finland's move to join Nato was ``definitely'' a threat to Russia and that the expansion of the military bloc would not make Europe or the world more stable.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has cited the issue as a reason for his actions in Ukraine, which has expressed a desire to join the USled Western alliance.
Moscow has repeatedly warned Finland and Sweden — both European Union member states — against joining Nato, threatening ‘‘serious military and political consequences’’.
On the front lines, Ukraine said it had pushed back Russian forces in the east and shut gas flows on a route through Russianheld territory, raising the spectre of an energy crisis in Europe.
Ukraine’s armed forces general staff said it had recaptured Pytomnyk, a village on the main highway north of the secondlargest city of Kharkiv, about halfway to the Russian border.
Britain’s ministry of defence said in its daily update on the military situation yesterday that Ukrainian forces had retaken several towns and villages.
In the hamlet of Vilkhivka, less than 30km south of the Russian border, a grizzled pensioner recounted how Russian troops had used him and other villagers as human shields before retreating after fierce fighting.
The advance appears to be the quickest that Ukraine has mounted since it drove Russian troops away from the capital Kyiv and out of northern Ukraine at the beginning of April.
But Russian forces were regrouping to prevent further advances, and had crossed the Donets River, where fighting was under way, the Ukraine general staff said yesterday.
In the south, Ukraine’s military said it had destroyed two tanks and an ammunition depot in the Russiancontrolled Kherson region.
Viacheslav Chaus, governor of the northern Chernihiv region, said some civilians had been killed and wounded in the city of NovhorodSiversky by Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure, administrative buildings and private houses overnight.
Wednesday’s move by Ukraine to cut off Russian gas supplies through territory held by Russianbacked separatists was the first time the conflict has directly disrupted shipments to Europe.
Russian forces have also continued to bombard the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, last bastion of Ukrainian defenders in the southern port.
Ukraine says it is likely that tens of thousands of people have been killed in Mariupol. Ukrainian authorities say between 150,000 and 170,000 of the city’s 400,000 residents are still living there amid the Russianoccupied ruins. — Reuters