BRUSSELS — The blue-and-white Finnish flag rises outside NATO headquarters Tuesday afternoon, making Finland a member and doubling Russia’s border with the world’s biggest security alliance.
The move is a strategic and political blow to President Vladimir Putin, who has long complained about NATO’s expansion toward Russia and partly used that as a justification for his country’s war with Ukraine.
“What we see is that President Putin went to war against Ukraine with a declared aim to get less NATO,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. “He’s getting the exact opposite.”
Like all NATO members, Finland will benefit from the collective security guarantee that an attack on one is considered an attack on all.
NATO has said that it has no immediate intention to step up its presence in Finland. Some members have deployed troops there for war games over the last year.
Russia immediately warned that it would bolster forces near Finland if NATO sends any additional troops or equipment to what will be its 31st member country
Finland has substantial, well-trained armed forces with elite troops capable of operating in the sub-zero temperatures of the high north. The Nordic country also has a large reserve army and is investing heavily in new equipment, including dozens of U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets.
The Finnish flag rising between the French and the Estonian in a ceremony scheduled for 1330 GMT will complete the fastest accession process in the organization’s recent history .
Alarmed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, Finland applied to join NATO in May 2022. Neighboring Sweden also applied, but its accession process will take longer.
The ceremony falls on NATO’s very own birthday, the 74th anniversary of the signing of its founding Washington Treaty on April 4, 1949.
“It will be a good day for Finland’s security, for Nordic security, and for NATO as a whole,” Stoltenberg told reporters on Monday on the eve of a meeting of alliance’s foreign ministers in Brussels.
Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer (832-mile) border with Russia and unlike most members of the alliance, Finland did not cut defense spending and investment after the Cold War.