Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed to take the news calmly, despite the fact that he had condemned the move to apply for NATO membership.
The Palace in Helsinki, Finland was built on August 21, 2019.
Niinist and other officials prepared a report on the application to NATO that will be submitted to parliament.
Since 1948, when it signed a treaty with the Soviet Union prohibiting either country from joining a military alliance against the other,Finland has remained neutral in conflicts between larger nations.
In a Saturday phone call with Niinist, Putin warned that applying to NATO would be wrong.
During the State of the Union on Sunday, Niinist told CNN that Putin seemed calm and cool during the conversation.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the U.S. will support the bid by Finland to join NATO.
Turkey's president said Friday that he doesn't want Sweden and Finland to join NATO because of their support for Kurdish groups. All 30 existing NATO members need to approve new members, so the opposition could stymy the application. The country is not closing the door to either country joining the alliance, according to a spokesman for the president.
NATO was formed in 1949 and requires member states to provide military aid if attacked. The annexation of the peninsula by Russia made the Ukrainian public want to join NATO. A survey by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation shows that a majority of Ukrainians want to join the alliance. NATO rejected Russia's demand that Ukraine be barred from membership because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. After the invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that his country will not join NATO in the immediate future. The invasion has prompted historically neutral European countries to consider applying for NATO membership, which would ensure other NATO members would assist them if they were threatened by Russia. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his country had signed a security agreement with two other countries.
Europe is more divided than the world as a whole.
In 1917, in the midst of the chaos following the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War,Finland declared independence from Russia. During the Winter War of 1939, the Soviet Red Army suffered heavy losses at the hands of the smaller Finn military, which dealt a blow to Soviet military prestige. In 1941, the Soviet Union invaded again, and in order to strengthen its defense, it began cooperating with Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union received $300 million in compensation after the end of World War II.
Turkey doesn't want Sweden to join NATO, says the president.
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