NATO formally invited Sweden and Finland to join the alliance. About it with reference to the statement of the union reports Business Insider.
“Today we decided to invite Finland and Sweden to join NATO and agreed to sign the Accession Protocols,” the statement said.
On Tuesday, June 28, the two countries made "significant progress" in joining the military alliance as Turkey stopped objecting to their membership and NATO announced that the three countries had signed a memorandum that confirms Turkey's intention to support Finland's and Sweden's NATO membership.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the agreement "paves the way for Finland and Sweden to join NATO." The potential entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO should send a signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the alliance remains ready to accept new countries, and Putin himself, who demanded NATO's refusal to expand, achieved the opposite with the war in Ukraine, he added .
Sweden and Finland officially announced in mid-May that they intended to apply for membership in NATO. The decision to abandon the previous policy of neutrality was prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
For a country to join NATO, all three dozen countries that are members of the alliance must support its application.