Finland formally joined NATO on Tuesday and essentially doubled the military alliance’s border with Russia amid the year-long war in Ukraine—drawing a warning from the Kremlin.
The move by Finland, which shares an approximately 832-mile border with Russia, will bolster NATO’s eastern flank as Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto completed the accession process by handing over an official document to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
“We welcome Finland to the alliance,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the end of a brief ceremony on Tuesday. “This will make Finland safer and NATO stronger,” he told reporters, adding that Russia has “a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less NATO along its borders and no more membership in Europe” and the Kremlin is “getting exactly the opposite.”…