Finland is “highly likely” to join NATO following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, its Europe minister has told Sky News.
Tytti Tuppurainen said that the “people of Finland have already made up their mind” and that polls show huge support for membership of the alliance.
“At this point I would say it is highly, but a decision has not yet been made,” she said.
She said Russia’s “brutal” war in Ukraine is a “wake up call to us all”.
“Not only to us Finns, it has to do with the whole security border in Europe,” she said.
It comes after the Finnish and Swedish prime ministers Sanna Marin and Magdalena Andersson took part in a joint press conference on Wednesday.
Ms Marin said her country, which shares an 810-mile border with Russia, was ready to make a formal decision on NATO membership “within weeks” following a debate in parliament.
Russia threatens nuclear escalation over Finland and Sweden NATO bid
Moscow responded by threatening it would be the end of a nuclear-free Baltic region.
Threatening nuclear escalation, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev said: “There can be no more talk of any nuclear-free status for the Baltic – the balance must be restored.”
He also vowed to “seriously strengthen the grouping of ground forces and air defence (and) deploy significant naval forces in the Gulf of Finland”.
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But Lithuanian defence minister Arvydas Anusauskas said this was “nothing new” and Russia already has nuclear weapons in the region – in Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave on the Baltic Sea.
Speaking to Sky News on Friday, Ms Tuppurainen commented: “Whatever Russia is saying, we are hearing that, but we are doing our own decisions based on our interests and our considerations of the overall situation.
“Every country has the right to do its own security arrangements.”
Process should be ‘swift’
Asked how quickly Finland could join NATO, she added: “It depends on the NATO member states, including the UK.
“It needs ratification in each and every member state. The interim period between us leaving the membership application and becoming an actual member of NATO can become really nasty.
“So it’s in the interest of us all for the process to be as swift as possible.”
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Finland gained independence from Russia in 1917 and fought two wars against it during the Second World War, when it lost some territory to Moscow.
Quizzed on what relations with Russia were like before the war in Ukraine, she said ordinary people would come and go as they pleased, there were “cross-border relations” and “cultural exchanges”.
But now she said: “Things have changed radically. We can no longer trust Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”
One of Mr Putin’s main justifications for invading Ukraine was to prevent it becoming a NATO member.