Finland will become the 31st member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Tuesday, April 4, after ratifying its accession to the defense alliance in record time.
According to the procedure, at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland will hand over the official documents regarding the accession to the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. This will happen on the sidelines of the meeting of foreign ministers of the Alliance countries.
Then the blue and white flag of the country will be raised alongside the flags of the Allies. It flies between the flags of Estonia and France.
Finland's entry into NATO will mark the end of the country's era of military neutrality, which began after repelling an attempted invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II.
Russia's recent invasion of Ukraine prompted the Finns to seek safety under the umbrella of NATO's collective defense agreement. Finland's accession roughly doubles the length of NATO's border with Russia.
Despite the fact that Finland's accession was blocked by Turkey for a long time, the ratification of Finland's accession to NATO became the fastest in history against the background of the war in Ukraine and lasted less than a year.
On Monday, Moscow said it would increase its military capabilities in the western and northwestern regions in response to Finland joining NATO.
A similar transformation of defense thinking took place in Sweden, but the application of this Scandinavian state is delayed by NATO members Turkey and Hungary.
At a briefing the day before, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed that Finland will officially join NATO on April 4. Initially, Helsinki expected that the procedure could take up to two weeks to complete.
