Finland leaders announce support for Nato membership, Russia warns of consequences

Thursday leaders Thursday supported applying for joining the North Atlantic Agreement (NATO), and Sweden could do the same in a few days, in the historic rearrangement on the continent more than two months after the Russian President’s Ukraine invasion Vladimir Putin sent to Ukrain shivered in fear through Moscow’s neighbors.

Kremlin reacts with the warning that will be forced to take the steps of “military-technical” retaliation.

On the ground, meanwhile, Russian troops pounded areas in Central, North and East Ukraine, including the last pockets of resistance in Mariupol, as part of their attacks to take the Donbas industrial area, while Ukraine recolated several cities and villages in the northeast.

The First War Crime Court A Russian soldier since the beginning of the conflict will be opened on Friday in Kyiv. A 21 -year -old member from a tank unit was accused of shooting to death a civilian by bicycle during the opening week of the war.

‘LOOK IN THE MIRROR’
The President and Prime Minister of Finnish announced that the Nordic State must immediately register for membership in NATO, a military defense pact that was founded in part against the Soviet Union.

While the state parliament still has to weigh, the announcement means that Finland will definitely register – and get revenue – even though the process can take months to complete it. Sweden, also, is considering placing himself under NATO protection.

That will represent major changes in the European security landscape: Sweden has avoided military alliances for more than 200 years, while Finland adopted neutrality after his defeat by the Soviet in World War II.

Public opinion in the two countries shifted dramatically for NATO membership after the invasion, which aroused fear in countries along the Russian side that they could be the next.

Such an alliance expansion will make Russia surrounded by NATO countries in the Baltic Sea and the North Pole and will be the same as a stinging setback for Putin, who hopes to share and roll back NATO in Europe but instead see the opposite.

Secretary General Nato Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would welcome Finland and Sweden with open arms.

The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that Moscow “will be forced to take steps to retaliate from military technical and other characteristics to fight threats that arise against their national security.”

Nuclear threat
The donations of NATO weapons and other military support to Ukraine have been very important for Kyiv’s shocking success in obstructing invasion, and Kremlin warns in terrible terms on Thursday that assistance can cause direct conflict between NATO and Russia.

There is always a risk of such conflict to turn into a full scale nuclear war, a scenario that will be a disaster for all,” said Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Head of the Russian Security Council.

While Russia’s progress in Donbas is slow, his troops have received several land and took several villages.

Four civilians were killed Thursday in three communities in the Donetsk region, which was part of Donbas, the Regional Governor reported.

The British Ministry of Defense said Russia’s focus on Donbas had left its remaining troops around the northeast city of Kharkiv vulnerable to a counterattack from Ukraine forces, which reclaimed several cities and villages around the city.

The Russian strike killed at least two civilians on the outskirts of Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, said local authorities.

The attacks also damaged a building that accommodated humanitarian aid units, city offices and hospital facilities, Vyacheslav Zadorenko, Mayor of the suburbs of Derhachi City, wrote in a telegram post.

None of the sites “has something to do with military infrastructure,” said Zadorenko.

Fighting all over the east has encouraged thousands of Ukrainians from their homes.

This is terrible there now. We went under the missile, “said Tatiana Kravstova, who left the city of Siversk with her 8 -year -old Son Meaning on a bus to the central city of Dnipro. “I don’t know where they are aiming, but they appoint civilians.”

Ukraine also said Russian troops had fired artillery launchers and grenades in Ukraine forces around Zaporizhzhia, who had become a shelter for civilians who fled Mariapol, and attacked in the Chernihiv and Sumy regions to the north.

Air strikes last night near Chernihiv, in North Ukraine, killed at least three people, said the Ukraine military. It is said that Russian troops fired rockets to schools and student dormitories in Novhorod-Siversky and that several other buildings, including private homes, were also damaged.

In his night speech to the country, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack.

Of course, the Russian state is in such a way that any education only blocks its way. But what can be achieved by destroying Ukraine schools? All Russian commanders who gave such orders were really sick and could not be cured. “