NATO has established 8 multinational battle groups in Poland and the Baltic nations, and more recently in Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, to serve as a "tripwire" in case of Russian attack
In Russia's opinion, the expansion of NATO infringes on its security and national interests
A snub for Putin, a risk for Europe
Finland's parliamentary website was paralysed by a denial-of-service attack on Tuesday, just before the country made its historic entry into NATO
Finland's accession roughly doubles the length of the border that Nato shares with Russia and bolsters its eastern flank as the war in Ukraine grinds on with no resolution in sight
Finland is set to officially become a member of NATO later on Tuesday and take its place among the ranks of the world's biggest security alliance
In a video shared by the official Twitter account of NATO Spokesperson, Oana Lungescu, the NATO General Secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, is heard welcoming and congratulating Finland
Nato's membership has increased from 12 to 30 countries through eight rounds of enlargement. The Republic of North Macedonia became the latest country to join Nato on March 27, 2020
Anti-explosive divers have participated in drills, as have chemical, biological, and nuclear defence specialists
With Hungary's approval, Turkey is now the only one of NATO's 30 members not to have ratified Finland's NATO accession
Nikolay Patrushev emphasises that the NATO countries are parties to the conflict with Ukraine
John Kirby noted that on Ukraine the two sides just said, the purposes and principles of the UN Charter must be observed and international law must be respected
After Turkey approved the process of ratifying Finland's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the US welcomed the decision of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Poland said Thursday it plans to give Ukraine about a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets, which would make it the first NATO member to fulfil Kyiv's increasingly urgent requests for warplanes to defend itself
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested Wednesday that his country could soon ratify Finland's application to join NATO
Representatives of Sweden, Finland and Turkey held talks in Brussels to discuss progress on fulfilling Turkey's conditions for agreeing to the Nordic countries' accession to NATO
The US intelligence community believes that Russia probably does not want a direct military conflict with US and NATO forces, but there is potential for that to occur
A parliamentary delegation from Hungary said Tuesday that it supports Sweden's NATO membership bid after meeting the speaker of the Swedish parliament
He said that all NATO could do was remind Putin that it is a nuclear-armed alliance. Its message was that Russia should not even think about it
The delays, which have come in succession since July 2022, have frustrated some in the European Union as well as members of Hungary's opposition parties