On the 4th of April 2023, Finland was officially declared a member of NATO. In a CNN article posted by Tara John, they have a statement from the Finnish presidency saying, “Finland has today become a member of the defense alliance NATO. The era of military non-alignment in our history has come to an end. A new era begins”. Finland joining NATO makes the alliance border against Russia increase by a rough 830 miles. This is a problem because Russia has said previously that increasing the number of NATO members wouldn’t bring Europe into a state of stability.

Russia has said to Finland that if they were to join NATO that it would be a very bad and dangerous thing that would backfire on them. On Ukraines side, an article from Reuters by Anne Kauranen and Andrew Gray, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, “I congratulate all the people of Finland.” So obviously, they are happy about the new members’ decision on joining. He also said, “Russian aggression clearly proves that only collective guarantees, only preventive guarantees, can be reliable.”

Finland joining NATO also marks an end to Finlands their military non-alignment. Their military non-alignment began when they made peace with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. However, because of the recent war outbreak between Russia and Ukraine, Finland sought out protection from the war and they went to NATO.