After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden are wrestling over whether to join NATO. Lisa Abend reports on the consequential debate
In Finland the shift in public opinion has been accompanied by popular efforts. Two separate citizens’ initiatives—one calling for a referendum on NATO, the other urging the President and other authorities to bring a proposal for accession before Parliament— have each garnered the necessary 50,000 signatures to trigger their consideration in the legislature; debate is expected to begin next week.
Matti Muukkonen, a law professor at the University of Eastern Finland, is one of the authors of the second initiative. Although he has long been in favor of Finland joining NATO, he and his colleagues submitted the initiative on March 3 because the Ukraine invasion had, in their view, drastically increased the urgency of accession. “Russia is ruthlessly working to create a buffer between itself and NATO,” he says.
Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin, right, and Defense Minister Antti Kaikkonen arrive to address a press conference after the decision to supply arms to Ukraine, in Helsinki, Finland, on Feb. 28, 2022.Because it shares both an 800-mile border and a long and complicated history with Russia , the country is keenly alert to the potential threat posed by its powerful neighbor to the east.
Russian foreign minister spokeswoman Maria Zakharova appeared to reinforce that message explicitly to the two Nordic countries the day after the Ukraine invasion. “It’s obvious,” she said at. “That if Finland and Sweden join NATO, which is first of all a military organization, it will entail serious military-political consequences, which would require retaliatory steps by the Russian Federation.” Her statement has since been repeated by others in Russia’s foreign ministry.
There are signs that Russia is already behaving aggressively in the region. On the day the second citizens’ initiative was launched, Finland’s largest banks were the target of a massive DDoS attack. Because Finns generally use their banking IDs for digital services , some experts saw the attack as an attempt to block the initiative.
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