Finland on Tuesday turned an official member of the army alliance NATO, prompted by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s determination to invade Ukraine final yr.

The Nordic nation is the thirty first nation to hitch the alliance, which vows in its treaty that an assault on considered one of its members is an assault on all of them. It is a historic second for Finland, which has adopted a path of neutrality for many years.

“Finland’s membership is just not focused in opposition to anybody. Nor does it change the foundations or aims of Finland’s overseas and safety coverage,” Finnish President Sauli Niinisto stated in a written assertion Tuesday.

His feedback got here shortly after the nation’s overseas affairs minister, Pekka Haavisto, handed over all of the accession paperwork in Brussels, at NATO’s headquarters, within the presence of the group’s secretary common, Jens Stoltenberg, and U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken.

Authorities in Helsinki determined that within the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Feb. 2022, the nation was now not secure by itself and utilized to hitch the alliance just a few months later. Finland shares an 832-mile border with Russia, the longest of any European Union member. NATO’s border with Russia will roughly double in dimension after Finland’s accession.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated Tuesday that Russia would carefully observe any NATO deployments in Finland and that his nation would take “counter-measures” to this accession, in accordance with Reuters.

Finland utilized to turn out to be a member of NATO similtaneously Sweden. Nonetheless, it’s nonetheless unclear what the longer term holds for Stockholm.

Its determination to hitch the alliance additionally marked a watershed second within the nation’s historical past, provided that it had adopted an impartial army coverage for greater than 200 years.

Hungary and Turkey — two NATO nations — have but to approve Sweden’s accession to the army alliance.

An official in Stockholm, talking to CNBC on Mar. 20 on situation of anonymity as a result of delicate nature of the topic, stated they’re nonetheless working underneath the idea that Sweden might be an official NATO member by July, when heads of state of the alliance collect for a gathering.

Turkey’s opposition to Sweden’s NATO membership facilities round what it says is the harboring of militants from the Kurdistan Employees’ Get together. In January, far-right demonstrators burned a Quran and chanted anti-Muslim slogans in entrance of Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. Ankara instantly denounced the act, in addition to Sweden’s granting of a allow to the right-wing group to carry the demonstration.

Throughout a NATO assembly in Madrid in June final yr, Sweden, Finland and Turkey signed an settlement outlining a path to a compromise, with Ankara calling for additional anti-terrorism ensures.

Talking to CNBC in February, Sweden’s International Affairs Minister Tobias Billström stated his nation had finished its half to meet the settlement.

—CNBC’s Natasha Turak contributed to this text.