STOCKHOLM — The
Russian invasion of Ukraine has upended the status quo in traditionally
non-aligned Finland and Sweden, ushering in an "historic" surge in
support for NATO, "exceptional" arms exports and defiance in the face
of Russian demands.
اضافة اعلان
Stockholm and Helsinki have ruled out
applying to join the
NATO military alliance for the time being, but the two
countries have never been so close to taking the plunge, analysts say.
"Anything is possible at the moment and
the signal from NATO countries is that a membership application can be
processed in a very short time span," said Zebulon Carlander, defense
analyst with the Society and Defense organization in Sweden.
"So I think it's very much a political
decision that rests in the capitals — Stockholm and Helsinki," he told
AFP.
The two countries are officially
non-aligned, although they have been NATO partners since the mid-1990s and
ended their neutral stance at the end of the
Cold War.
Finland's parliament is due on Tuesday
afternoon to consider how to respond to a public petition calling for a
referendum on NATO membership.
The citizen's petition garnered the 50,000
signatures needed to refer the matter to the Eduskunta in less than a week.
It will be considered by lawmakers as part
of a wider debate on the crisis in Ukraine.
And although Prime Minister
Sanna Marin
tweeted on Monday that the debate was not intended as a "wider
conversation on Finland's policy regarding military alignment or non-alignment",
the context of the discussion has suddenly changed.
For the first time, a majority (53 percent)
of Finns are in favor of joining the Atlantic alliance, according to a poll
published on Monday by public broadcaster Yle.
This is almost double the number a month
ago, when a survey in the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper put support for NATO
membership at just 28 percent.
"(This is) a completely historic and
exceptional result," Charly Salonius-Pasternak, senior research fellow at
Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told AFP.
Support for joining NATO is historically
high in
Sweden too -- at 41 percent, according to a poll by public broadcaster
SVT last Friday.
Russian warnings
In another radical change, the two countries
have broken with tradition by exporting weapons to a country in active
conflict.
In addition to sending
Ukraine protective
equipment, including helmets and body armor, Stockholm is to deliver 5,000
anti-tank weapons.
This is an "exceptional" move,
stressed Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, unprecedented since the
Winter War of 1939, when Sweden sent assistance to Finland to counter an
invasion by none other than the Soviet Union.
"I think this is probably just the
beginning of reassessments in Swedish defense security policy," Carlander
said.
And we are also seeing a debate now on what
further measures could be taken to strengthen the Swedish armed forces."
In another "historic decision", in
the words of Sanna Marin,
Finland on Monday also agreed to send weapons to
Ukraine, including 2,500 assault rifles, ammunition and 1,500 single-use
anti-tank weapons.
In parallel, the Swedish and Finnish army
reserves are reporting an increase in applications.
NATO membership for Finland and/or Sweden —
experts expect the two countries to act in concert — would infuriate the
Kremlin at a time when tensions between Russia and the West are already
explosive.
The eastward expansion of NATO is a red line
for
Moscow, which has felt betrayed by the West on this subject since the end
of the Cold War.
Last Friday, Russia's foreign ministry
warned that if the Nordic countries were to join NATO it would "have
serious military and political repercussions".
Helsinki shrugged this off as a warning it
had heard before, which did not amount to a threat of invasion.
Stockholm and Helsinki continue officially
to rule out membership bids. Yet, crucially, they have in recent weeks taken
steps to ensure that the door to the alliance — and its key Article 5 on
collective defense — remains open to them.
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