Kremlin Warns Again Against Further NATO Expansion

As Finland and Sweden consider joining NATO, the Kremlin has warned Monday that expanding the alliance won’t bring any more stability to Europe.

“We have repeatedly said that the alliance itself is more of a tool for confrontation. This is not an alliance that provides peace and stability, and further expansion of the alliance, of course, will not lead to more stability on the European continent,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

Some background: Finland and Sweden could soon join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The move would likely infuriate Moscow and — officials say — would further underscore Russia’s strategic error in invading Ukraine.

NATO officials told CNN that discussions about Sweden and Finland joining the bloc have gotten extremely serious since Russia’s invasion. Senior US State Department officials said the matter came up at this week’s NATO ministerial meeting, which was attended by the foreign ministers from Stockholm and Helsinki.

The Finnish government will present a security paper including a possible NATO membership for parliamentary discussion on Wednesday, the country’s Foreign Minister announced on Monday.

“This gives [the] Parliament now a possibility to discuss all the aspects of possible NATO membership and/or other security solutions. And then based on that debate, of course, government will make the conclusions together with the President of the Republic,” Pekka Haavisto told reporters ahead of the EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Luxembourg.

Haavisto said it was “important” that neighboring Sweden is following a “similar process” which he expects to take time. “But of course we exchange information all the time and, hopefully, if we make similar kinds of decisions, we could do them around the same time”, he said.