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Mark Moore<\/a> – April 11, 2022<\/p>\n Finland and Sweden are poised to join NATO as early as this summer, a move that a US official said stemmed from Russia\u2019s \u201cmassive strategic blunder\u201d of invading Ukraine, according to a report published Monday.\u00a0\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n Membership of the two Nordic countries in the Atlantic alliance was a \u201ctopic of conversation and multiple sessions\u201d last week during meetings of NATO foreign ministers that were attended by representatives from Stockholm and Helsinki, the Times of London<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n Finland is expected to submit an application in June, with Sweden following soon after, the report said.<\/p>\n The addition of Sweden and Finland would increase the alliance membership to 32 countries \u2014 and extend its border with Russia by hundreds of miles.<\/p>\n \u200b\u200b\u200b\u201cHow can this be anything but a massive strategic blunder for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin?\u201d\u200b a\u200b senior American official \u200btold the publication.<\/p>\n \u201cSweden and Finland would be real feathers in \u200bNATO\u2019s cap as net contributors. They are real players,\u201d a European diplomat \u200btold the Times, noting that adding both countries would help expand the alliance\u2019s capabilities, including in intelligence gathering and in air power.<\/p>\n Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said it was time for her country to reconsider becoming a NATO member and urged the alliance to consider any potential application \u201cthoroughly but quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRussia is not the neighbor we thought it was,\u201d \u200bMarin said earlier this month, adding: \u201cI 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\u200b.\u201d<\/p>\n Stockholm is following Helsinki\u2019s timetable and is conducting a security policy review that is expected to be concluded by the end of May.<\/p>\n https:\/\/nypost.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mark Moore – April 11, 2022 Finland and Sweden are poised to join NATO as early as this summer, a move that a US official said stemmed from Russia\u2019s \u201cmassive strategic blunder\u201d of invading Ukraine, according to a report published Monday.\u00a0\u200b\u200b Membership of the two Nordic countries in the Atlantic alliance was a \u201ctopic of … Continue reading Finland, Sweden could join NATO as soon as this summer: report<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[197,28,1077,7,16637,1558,661],"class_list":["post-20907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-watching","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-finland","tag-nato","tag-sanna-marin","tag-sweden","tag-ukraine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8fAkI-5rd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20907"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20925,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20907\/revisions\/20925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}