Finland is expected to announce on Thursday its intention to join NATO with Sweden likely to follow soon after, diplomats and officials said, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine reshapes European security and the Atlantic military alliance.

NATO allies expect Finland and Sweden to be granted membership quickly, five diplomats and officials told Reuters, paving the way for increased troop presence in the Nordic region during the one-year ratification period. read more

In the wider Nordic region, Norway, Denmark and the three Baltic states are already NATO members, and the addition of Finland and Sweden would likely anger Moscow, which says NATO enlargement is a direct threat to its own security.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has cited the issue as a reason for his actions in Ukraine, which has also expressed a desire to eventually join the alliance.

Moscow has also repeatedly warned Finland and Sweden against joining the alliance, threatening "serious military and political consequences".

Asked on Wednesday if Finland would provoke Russia by joining NATO, President Sauli Niinisto said Putin would be to blame. "My response would be that you caused this. Look at the mirror," Niinisto said. read more

On the frontlines, Ukraine on Wednesday said it had pushed back Russian forces in the east and shut gas flows on a route through Russian-held territory, raising the spectre of an energy crisis in Europe.

Ukraine's armed forces' general staff said it had recaptured Pytomnyk, a village on the main highway north of the second-largest city of Kharkiv, about halfway to the Russian border.

In another village near Kharkiv recaptured by Ukrainian forces in early April, resident Tatyana Pochivalova returned to find her home blasted to ruins.

"I have not expected anything like this, such aggression, such destruction," a weeping Pochivalova said. "I came and I kissed the ground, I simply kissed it. My home, there is nothing. Where am I to live, how am I to live?"

The advance appears to be the fastest that Ukraine has mounted since it drove Russian troops away from the capital Kyiv and out of northern Ukraine at the beginning of April.

If sustained, it could let Ukrainian forces threaten supply lines for Russia's main attack force, and put rear logistics targets in Russia itself within range of artillery.

In the south, Ukraine's military said early on Thursday it had destroyed two tanks and an ammunition depot in the Russian-controlled Kherson region.

The Kremlin calls its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation" to demilitarise a neighbour threatening its security. It denies targeting civilians.

Ukraine says it poses no threat and that the deaths of thousands of civilians and destruction of towns and cities show that Russia is waging a war of conquest.


https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nato-welcome-nordic-members-ukraine-pushes-back-russian-forces-2022-05-12/

Asked on Wednesday if Finland would provoke Russia by joining NATO, President Sauli Niinisto said Putin would be to blame. "My response would be that you caused this. Look at the mirror," Niinisto said.

yanabasee:
Originally, Putin is to be blame for all of this.... He let his ego and pride to guide him all along....

Some governors have resigned and many of his generals are buried...Even with all his nukes... he's handicapped...

He wanted to escalate this war into a full blown WIII but God made him useless...

Bodmum:
putin =coward. The basterds sons of putin should go and die.