Finland’s nato membership: Russia warns of ‘countermeasures’

The Kremlin yesterday branded Finland's Nato membership an "assault on our security" and said it would take countermeasures.

"The Kremlin believes that this is the latest aggravation of the situation," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "The expansion of Nato is an assault on our security and Russia's national interests," he added.

"And this forces us to take countermeasures... in tactical and strategic terms." He did not provide further details.

Finland became the 31st member of Nato yesterday, in a historic strategic shift provoked by Moscow's assault on Ukraine, which doubles the US-led alliance's border with Russia.

Finland's Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto formally wrapped up the process by handing Helsinki's accession papers to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the formal keeper of Nato's founding treaty.

"With receipt of this instrument of accession, we can now declare that Finland is the 31st member of the North Atlantic Treaty," Blinken said, at a ceremony in Nato's Brussels headquarters.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had "wanted to slam Nato's door shut. Today we show the world that he failed, that aggression and intimidation do not work."

"Finland now has the strongest friends and allies in the world," he said.

Joining Nato places Finland under the alliance's Article Five, the collective defence pledge that an attack on one member "shall be considered an attack against them all".

This was the guarantee Finnish leaders decided they needed as they watched Putin's devastating assault on Ukraine. Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said: "It is a great day for Finland and I want to say that it is an important day for Nato."

US President Joe Biden said he is "proud" to welcome Finland into Nato, reports AFP.

On the battlefield, Ukrainian defence forces destroyed 14 out of 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones Russia launched overnight, Ukraine's military said yesterday, with 13 drones destroyed over the Odesa region in the country's southwest.

"In total, up to 17 launches of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) attacks were recorded, presumably from the eastern coast area of the Sea of Azov," the command said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine's South military command said one drone hit an enterprise in the Odesa region, causing a fire, which was eliminated by the morning, reports Reuters.

"According to preliminary information, there were no human losses," the command said in a statement.

The United Nations Human Rights Council yesterday demanded that Russia provide access to and information about Ukrainian children and other civilians forcibly transferred to territory under its control.

The top UN rights body passed a resolution demanding that Moscow "cease the unlawful forced transfer and deportation of civilians and other protected persons within Ukraine or to the Russian Federation."

The text, which passed with 28 of the 47 council members voting in favour, 17 abstaining and only China and Eritrea opposed, highlighted in particular the transfer of "children, including those from institutional care, unaccompanied children and separated children."

Kyiv maintains that more than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia as of February this year.