The initiative for Finland's accession to NATO entered the Parliament

NATO headquarters building in BrusselsHELSINKI Feb 26The civil initiative for Finland's accession to NATO has overcome the required threshold of 50,000 signatures and has been submitted to parliament for consideration, follows from the data of the website kansalaisaloite («civil initiatives»). According to the authors, NATO membership will legally strengthen the status quo and significantly increase the ability of Finland protect against external threats.There have been five waves of NATO expansion, Russia has been deceived, Putin said «The defense obligations guaranteed by Article 5 of the NATO Treaty will significantly increase confidence in the defense of Finland and make the military-technical intervention of foreign powers much more costly and risky than today,» they argue. created on February 21st. As of 21:00 on February 26, it has collected 50,570 signatures, and their number continues to grow. It is not yet known when Parliament will consider this proposal. Prime Minister Sanna Marin said earlier that Helsinki is ready to apply to join the alliance if the issue of national security comes up. According to Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto, Finland and Sweden have been in active contact with NATO since 1994 and continue to discuss European security issues with the alliance. As US State Department spokesman Ned Price noted, the decision to take such a step is up to these countries, the doors of the alliance remain open. in aggression At the end of last year, against the backdrop of deteriorating relations with the West and aggravation around Ukraine, Moscow handed over draft documents on security guarantees to Brussels and Washington. The Kremlin insists on ending the bloc's military cooperation with the post-Soviet countries, refusing to create bases on their territory, limiting the deployment of strike weapons near the Russian border, removing American nuclear weapons from Europe and not expanding NATO to the east. However, it was his Western partners who, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, were ignored in their written response. Moscow believes that the position of Washington and Brussels runs counter to the OSCE commitments on the indivisibility of security: the US and NATO are defending their interests to the detriment of others.NATO's actions are contrary to morality, Putin saidPosted by: Petr Popadyuk