Finland to apply for Nato membership ‘within weeks’, former PM claims

It comes after Moscow warned a bid for Nato membership would result in ‘the destruction’ of the country

Finland is preparing to apply for Nato membership “within weeks”, the country’s former prime minister has claimed, despite warnings from Moscow it would result in “the destruction of their country.”

The Northern European nation, which shares a long border with Russia, has never been a member of the defence alliance and, until now, has organised its own protection.

But in the wake of Russia’s fierce military operation in Ukraine, public opinion has taken a sharp turn as the majority are now in favour of making an application to join the alliance, opinion polls commissioned by Finnish media outlets found.

Alexander Stubb, who was Finland’s prime minister in 2014 and 2015, said the country could make its formal bid to join the Cold War alliance as early as May.

He said: “In the beginning of the war I said that Putin’s aggression will drive Finland and Sweden to apply for Nato membership.

“I said it was not a matter of days or weeks, but months. Time to revise: Finland will apply within weeks, latest May. Sweden to follow, or at the same time.”

It follows a remark from Russian lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov earlier this week in which he claimed that it was not likely “the Finns themselves will sign a card for the destruction of their country,” before threatening a repeat of the invasion of Ukraine.

Elsewhere, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg today said the 30-member alliance would “warmly welcome” the Nordic country should it apply for membership.

He also told CNBC that Finland’s move to consider joining Nato was a “direct result” of Russia’s invasion of its neighbour.

“The message from Nato and from me is that it is for Finland to decide,” Mr Stoltenberg said.

“We will respect the decision regardless of what the conclusion will be, but if Finland decides to apply for membership, I am confident that Nato allies will warmly welcome them — and we can quite quickly make the decision to have them as a member of the allies.”

It comes after Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto on Thursday said that the country would soon clarify the next steps on the possibility that it will apply for membership.

Meanwhile, the Finnish government on Friday reported that several of its websites suffered cyberattacks at the same time as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was giving a video address to Finland‘s parliament.

The ministries for defence and foreign affairs both tweeted that their websites had been hit by denial of service attacks, which are typically intended to make the sites unavailable to regular users. The foreign ministry later said the situation had been normalised.

The attacks also hit the main government website, the government said.

Earlier on Friday, Finland‘s ministry of defence reported a violation of Finnish airspace by a Russian state aircraft.