Finland formally becomes 31st member of Nato
Jon Henley
Finland has become the 31st member of Nato after its foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, signed an accession document and handed it to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at a ceremony in Brussels.
The handover marks the formal accession of Russia’s western neighbour to the world’s largest military alliance, completing an accelerated application process launched last May, when Finland and neighbouring Sweden abandoned decades of military nonalignment to seek security as Nato members after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“President Putin had as a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less Nato,” the alliance’s secretary general, the former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, said shortly before the ceremony. “He is getting exactly the opposite.”
Stoltenberg added: “Finland today, and soon also Sweden will become a full-fledged member of the alliance.” Finland’s membership “removes the room for miscalculation in Moscow about Nato’s readiness to protect Finland”, he said.
Nato’s border with Russia will roughly double with the accession of Finland, which shares a 1,340km (832 mile) border with its eastern neighbour. Moscow has warned it will bolster its defences in the region if necessary.
Turkey became the last Nato member to ratify Finland’s application last week, but Turkey and Hungary continue to delay Sweden’s application, with Ankara accusing Stockholm of sheltering Kurdish militants and Budapest angry about Swedish criticism of the rule of law in Hungary.
Finland’s accession falls on the 74th anniversary of the signing of Nato’s founding Washington Treaty on 4 April 1949.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Tuesday that Nato’s expansion to embrace Finland was an “encroachment on our security and on Russia’s national interests”, adding that Moscow would watch closely for any Nato military deployments there.
Key events
The Russian finance ministry said it had paid out 6.6 billion roubles in full settlement of a 2042 eurobond coupon.
More soon…
Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, has said Finland’s accession to Nato increased the risks of wider conflict. In an address to the leadership of Russia’s armed forces he also said that Belarusian jets were now capable of carrying Russian nuclear missiles, a development likely to ratchet up tension
Jon Henley
You can read the Guardian’s full report here of Finland becoming Nato’s 31st member.
Finland has become the 31st member of Nato after its foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, signed an accession document and handed it to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at a ceremony in Brussels.
The handover marks the formal accession of Russia’s western neighbour to the world’s largest military alliance, completing an accelerated application process launched last May, when Finland and neighbouring Sweden abandoned decades of military nonalignment to seek security as Nato members after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“President Putin had as a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less Nato,” the alliance’s secretary general, the former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, said shortly before the ceremony. “He is getting exactly the opposite.”
Stoltenberg added: “Finland today, and soon also Sweden will become a full-fledged member of the alliance.” Finland’s membership “removes the room for miscalculation in Moscow about Nato’s readiness to protect Finland”, he said.
The blue and white flag of Finland will shortly be raised alongside those of its partners outside Nato headquarters.
Summary of the day so far …
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Finland has become the 31st member of Nato after its foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, signed an accession document and handed it to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at a ceremony in Brussels. The handover marks the formal accession of Russia’s western neighbour to the world’s largest military alliance, completing an accelerated application process launched last May, when Finland and neighbouring Sweden abandoned decades of military nonalignment to seek security as Nato members after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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“Russian President Vladimir Putin had as a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less Nato,” the alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said shortly before the ceremony. “He is getting exactly the opposite”. Stoltenberg added: “Finland today, and soon also Sweden, will become a full-fledged member of the alliance.” Finland’s membership “removes the room for miscalculation in Moscow about Nato’s readiness to protect Finland”, he said.
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Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, said the accession of Finland increased the risks of wider conflict. In an address to the leadership of Russia’s armed forces he also said that Belarusian jets are now capable of carrying Russian nuclear missiles, in a move likely to ratchet up tension.
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Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who was accused by the international criminal court (ICC) alongside Putin of war crimes in Ukraine, said on Tuesday that the ICC’s allegations were false and unclear. Maria Lvova-Belova also said Russia had accepted more than 5 million refugees from Ukraine’s Donbas region, including 730,000 children, since February 2022. The ICC said it had information that hundreds of children had been taken from orphanages and care homes in areas of Ukraine claimed by Russia. Some of those children, the ICC said, had been given up for adoption in Russia. Lvova-Belova insisted her commission was not aware of a single case of a child from eastern Ukraine being separated from their biological relatives and being transferred to a foster home.
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Russian investigators on Tuesday formally charged Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old woman, with terrorism offences over the killing of pro-war military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a bomb blast in St Petersburg. Tatarsky, a cheerleader for Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed on Sunday in an explosion in a cafe where he was due to talk. The committee, which investigates major crimes, said it had charged Trepova with committing “a terrorist act by an organised group that caused intentional death”. It said she had acted under instructions from people working on behalf of Ukraine.
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A Ukrainian soldier pleaded “partly guilty” on Tuesday at Russia’s first trial for war crimes in connection with its military campaign in Ukraine. Anton Cherednik, a member of Ukraine’s naval infantry, faced charges in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don of trying to seize power by force, of using prohibited methods of warfare and of murdering a civilian in Mariupol in March last year in the conflict’s early days. It was the first time Russia had accused a member of Ukraine’s armed forces of war crimes, according to Russian news outlets and the court’s press service.
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Polish farmers are threatening to derail a visit to Warsaw by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, over claims that Ukrainian grain is flooding their market, in a move that would provide Russia with valuable evidence of a crack in western solidarity. Ukraine’s president is scheduled to visit Poland’s capital on Wednesday to express his gratitude for the country’s solidarity over the war with Russia, but Polish grain producers are warning they could take to the streets to “ruin” the occasion.
Zelenskiy congratulates Finland on joining Nato
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has offered his congratulations to Finland on the country’s accession to Nato. In a post on Telegram, Ukraine’s president said:
My sincere congratulations to Finland and President Sauli Niinistö on joining Nato on the 74th anniversary of its founding. Amid Russian aggression, the alliance became the only effective guarantee of security in the region. We expect that the Vilnius Nato Summit will bring Ukraine closer to our Euro-Atlantic goal.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, is reporting that “about 260 houses on 30 streets were flooded in the Kramatorsk community of the Donetsk region”.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, posted to Telegram, saying “on one of the ponds, the water discharge sluice is partially destroyed, as a result of which there is an uncontrolled discharge of water.”
He said: “We are creating a concrete barrier and clearing the channel of the river there to minimise the consequences of the spill, we are relocating people from the affected houses to temporary housing.”
It is unclear from initial reports what has caused the damage.
Finland formally becomes 31st member of Nato
Jon Henley
Finland has become the 31st member of Nato after its foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, signed an accession document and handed it to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at a ceremony in Brussels.
The handover marks the formal accession of Russia’s western neighbour to the world’s largest military alliance, completing an accelerated application process launched last May, when Finland and neighbouring Sweden abandoned decades of military nonalignment to seek security as Nato members after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“President Putin had as a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less Nato,” the alliance’s secretary general, the former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, said shortly before the ceremony. “He is getting exactly the opposite.”
Stoltenberg added: “Finland today, and soon also Sweden will become a full-fledged member of the alliance.” Finland’s membership “removes the room for miscalculation in Moscow about Nato’s readiness to protect Finland”, he said.
Nato’s border with Russia will roughly double with the accession of Finland, which shares a 1,340km (832 mile) border with its eastern neighbour. Moscow has warned it will bolster its defences in the region if necessary.
Turkey became the last Nato member to ratify Finland’s application last week, but Turkey and Hungary continue to delay Sweden’s application, with Ankara accusing Stockholm of sheltering Kurdish militants and Budapest angry about Swedish criticism of the rule of law in Hungary.
Finland’s accession falls on the 74th anniversary of the signing of Nato’s founding Washington Treaty on 4 April 1949.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Tuesday that Nato’s expansion to embrace Finland was an “encroachment on our security and on Russia’s national interests”, adding that Moscow would watch closely for any Nato military deployments there.
Ukrainian soldier pleads ‘partly guilty’ at Russia’s first trial for war crimes
A Ukrainian soldier pleaded “partly guilty” on Tuesday at Russia’s first trial for war crimes in connection with its military campaign in Ukraine.
Anton Cherednik, a member of Ukraine’s naval infantry, faced charges in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don of trying to seize power by force, of using prohibited methods of warfare and of murdering a civilian in Mariupol in March last year in the conflict’s early days.
It was the first time Russia had accused a member of Ukraine’s armed forces of war crimes, according to Russian news outlets and the court’s press service.
Outside the court, his lawyer Vladimir Bakulov said Cherednik had pleaded “partly guilty” and had requested a meeting with the judge to explain his position. The case will resume next week, Reuters says Russian news agencies reported.
Prosecutors say Cherednik detained two men in Mariupol, ordering them to speak Ukrainian, and shot one of them who did not use correct pronunciation, the Tass news agency reported.
Russian forces seized Mariupol last May after weeks of attritional fighting.
Ukraine has already tried and sentenced a number of Russian soldiers for killing unarmed civilians.
Daniel Boffey
Polish farmers are threatening to derail a visit to Warsaw by Volodymyr Zelenskiy over claims that Ukrainian grain is flooding their market, in a move that would provide Russia with valuable evidence of a crack in western solidarity.
Ukraine’s president is scheduled to visit Poland’s capital on Wednesday to express his gratitude for the country’s solidarity over the war with Russia, but Polish grain producers are warning they could take to the streets to “ruin” the occasion.
“Warsaw should think the thing over,” said Marcin Sobczuk, the head of the Zamość Farmers’ Association, in an interview with the Polish news website Interia. He said the association was ready to “spoil” the visit, adding: “There are a lot of ideas, but it is too early to talk about it.”
As part of an EU initiative, all tariffs and quotas have been lifted on Ukrainian grain exports into the bloc’s 27 member states in order to facilitate the product’s transit around the world, including to Africa, where a Russian blockade on Ukrainian exports has been particularly painful.
The grain has, however, failed to move out of some eastern EU countries, including Poland, Hungary and Romania, forcing down prices in those countries and fuelling resentment in farming communities.
Read more of Daniel Boffey’s report here: Polish farmers threaten to ‘ruin’ Zelenskiy visit amid grain dispute
Here are some of the images from the ceremony in Brussels which admitted Finland to the Nato military alliance.
Alexander Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus, will travel to Moscow on Wednesday for two days of talks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin has said.
Reuters reports that according to the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, last week the two leaders would discuss Lukashenko’s call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine at a face-to-face meeting.
Putin and Lukashenko would hold talks on “topical bilateral and international issues” on 5 April, before a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Union State the following day, the Kremlin said in an announcement published on Tuesday.
Russia and Belarus are formally part of a Union State, a borderless union and alliance between the two ex-Soviet countries, though longstanding plans for closer integration of their economies have repeatedly stalled.
Moscow is Belarus’s key political and financial backer, while Lukashenko allowed Putin to use Belarus’s territory as a launchpad for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
Last month Putin said Russia would deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.
Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, said on Tuesday that Russia was boosting Belarus’ nuclear capabilities in response to Finland joining the Nato military alliance.
Finland formally joined the Nato military alliance on Tuesday in a historic policy shift brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, drawing a threat from Moscow of “countermeasures”.
Reuters reports that Finland’s accession roughly doubles the length of the border that Nato shares with Russia, while bolstering its eastern flank as the war in Ukraine grinds on with no resolution in sight.
The Finnish foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, completed the accession process by handing over an official document to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Nato headquarters in Brussels.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, welcoming Finland to its ranks, noted that Vladimir Putin had cited opposing Nato expansion as one justification for his invasion.
“He is getting exactly the opposite … Finland today, and soon also Sweden will become a full-fledged member of the alliance,” Stoltenberg said in Brussels.
The Kremlin said Russia would be forced to take “countermeasures” to Finland’s accession. The defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said the move raised the prospect of the conflict in Ukraine escalating further.
Russia said on Monday it would strengthen its military capacity in its western and northwestern regions in response to Finland joining Nato.
The Ukrainian government also hailed Finland’s move. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on Telegram: “FI made the right choice. Nato is also a key goal for Ukraine.”
But the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted Finns to seek security under Nato’s collective defence pact, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the Nato expansion was an “encroachment on our security and on Russia’s national interests”. Moscow would watch closely for any Nato military deployments in Finland, he said.
Blinken said: “I’m tempted to say this is maybe the one thing we can thank Mr Putin for. Because he once again here precipitated something he claims to want to prevent.”
Finland becomes Nato member
Finland became a member of Nato on Tuesday, completing a historic security policy shift triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Pekka Haavisto, the Finnish foreign minister, completed the accession process by handing over an official document to the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at Nato headquarters in Brussels.
Darya Trepova charged with terrorism offences over St Petersburg cafe explosion
Reuters reports that Russian investigators on Tuesday formally charged Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old woman, with terrorism offences over the killing of the pro-war military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a bomb blast in St Petersburg.
Tatarsky, a cheerleader for Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed on Sunday in an explosion in a cafe where he was due to talk.
The investigative committee, which looks into major crimes, said it had charged Trepova with committing “a terrorist act by an organised group that caused intentional death”.
It said she had acted under instructions from people working on behalf of Ukraine.
Trepova was transferred from St Petersburg to Moscow, where prosecutors were due to ask the Basmanny district court later on Tuesday to remand her in pre-trial detention.
A new Lithuanian bid to push the European Union to impose sanctions on Russia’s nuclear energy industry includes proposed exemptions for Hungary and a two-year period to phase out existing contracts, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Reuters reports that unlike similar proposals by the EU’s Russia hawks earlier on, the latest plan from Vilnius includes a nuanced approach, an apparent attempt to win over sceptics in Budapest and elsewhere.
“It is proposed to introduce individual restrictive measures for Rosatom,” says the policy proposal dated March 17, which has not been released publicly.
“In addition, it is appropriate to introduce a derogation on the basis of which operations, contracts or other agreements concluded with Rosatom could be still executed for a fixed period of time allowing European Union member states to complete the execution of these contracts or other agreements.”
The document proposed setting that at two years.
The EU has slapped 10 rounds of sanctions on Russia since it invaded Ukraine in Febraury, 2022, but hundreds of millions of euros worth of trade with Russia’s nuclear energy industry has not been directly affected.
All EU countries must agree for the bloc to impose sanctions and Budapest – where Rosatom is to expand the Paks nuclear power plant – has vowed to oppose any curbs on Russian nuclear energy industry.
The Lithuanian proposal sought to address that by offering Budapest specific carve-outs of up to nine years for Paks.
Otherwise, the sanctions proposed by Lithuania would ban new investments in Russia’s civil nuclear energy sector, prevent new cooperation agreements with Rosatom, and end imports of enriched uranium from Russia, with opt-outs for France and others who have running contracts there.
The detail of the proposal is reported here for the first time.
Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, spoke of it in broader terms on arriving for talks with his EU peers in Brussels on 20 March. He said the plan amounted to “an onion approach”.
“That means that it has a lot of layers to choose from. We can peel all those that we cannot … agree upon,” he told reporters.
“But still there are things that we can sanction when it comes to board members, it can be new contracts, it can be a lot of things taking into consideration those countries who have existing contracts and existing projects that need to be safeguarded.
Vladimir Putin has achieved the opposite of his Ukraine war aims by triggering Finland’s “historic” accession to Nato on Tuesday, the alliance’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, said, declaring Sweden would also join soon.
Reuters reports:
“President Putin had as a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less Nato,” he told reporters at Nato’s Brussels headquarters, speaking hours before Finland was officially to become a member of the military alliance.
“He is getting exactly the opposite… Finland today, and soon also Sweden will become a full fledged member of the alliance,” Stoltenberg said.
Later on Tuesday, Nato was to hold a ceremony at its headquarters marking Finland’s accession.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year pushed Finland and its neighbour Sweden to apply for Nato membership, abandoning decades of military non-alignment.
The final hurdle to Finland’s membership was removed last week when Turkey’s parliament voted to ratify Helsinki’s application even as it kept Sweden’s bid on hold.
Finland has an 810-mile border with Russia, meaning Nato’s frontier with Russia will roughly double in length, and the move drew a pledge from Moscow that it will beef up its forces in border regions.
Responding to Moscow’s latest announcements, Stoltenberg said Nato was constantly assessing its own posture, holding more exercises and having more presence in the Nordic region.
He also played down Putin’s pledge to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
“So far, we haven’t seen any changes in Russia’s nuclear posture that require any changes in our posture, but we will remain vigilant, we monitor closely what they do, and we will take the necessary steps to always ensure that we have credible deterrence for all our allies.”
Stoltenberg said Nato’s Nordic enlargement was not meant to provoke a conflict but preserve peace.
“By (Finland) becoming a full-fledged member, we are removing the room for miscalculation in Moscow, about Nato’s readiness to protect Finland, and that makes Finland safer and NATO stronger”, he noted.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said the expansion of Nato was an “encroachment on our security and on Russia’s national interests” and that Moscow would watch closely for any Nato military deployments in Finland.
Reuters reports that the United States and European Union will confront any attempts to destabilise global energy markets, the two sides said on Tuesday after a meeting of officials in Brussels where they discussed the fallout in energy markets of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The two sides reiterated their strong commitment to directly confront, with adequate measures, all efforts to further destabilise the global energy situation and to circumvent sanctions,” they said in a joint statement.
Finland’s entry into Nato ‘encroachment on Russia’s security’, says Kremlin spokesperson
The Russian state-owned news agency RIA is carrying remarks from the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov. It reports:
Peskov said that Finland’s entry into Nato (scheduled for today) is another aggravation of the situation, the expansion of the alliance is an encroachment on Russia’s security.
At the same time, he noted that this whole situation is fundamentally different from the problem with Ukraine – Finland has never been anti-Russia.
Reuters reports Peskov called Helsinki’s move to join the bloc an “encroachment” on Russia’s security and said the structure of Nato was hostile towards Russia. He said Russia would be forced to take “countermeasures” to ensure Russia’s security.