The Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto gave documents to the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday afternoon.
The exchange of the documents was done in an official accession of Finland to formally join NATO, who are now the 31st member of the alliance.
Military analyst and former Air Vice Marshall, Sean Bell warned that the “buffer zones” which once existed but are now no longer runs the “risk of friction” as the West and Russia are “building the foundations of a new Cold War.”
Speaking to Sky News Bell said in reference to Finland now being part of NATO, “It’s going to increase tensions, it has reduced the buffer zones that existed and therefore runs the risk of friction.”
He added, that we now “no longer have the buffer zones that we had that served us so well for the last Cold War.”
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The Kremlin has warned on Tuesday that the expansion of NATO risks “a significant expansion of the conflict” and Russia will be forced to take “counter-measures.”
The Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu warned that the reason why Moscow invaded Ukraine was to prevent further expansions of NATO around Russia.
However, Putin’s war in Ukraine to stop the expansion has had “exactly the opposite affect” that Putin wanted as the Russian leader has demanded that he wants “less NATO along” Russian borders.
The Kremlin said that they will strengthen their military presence along the Finnish and Russian border which is 810 miles long.
However, he added this will put a strain on resources as Vladimir Putin as his forces are immensely “overstretched” in Ukraine.
Bell then warned, “But I wouldn’t underestimate Putin’s concerns around this because he definitely wanted to stop NATO expansion and actually his invasion of Ukraine has done exactly the opposite thing.”
Lord Dannatt told Sky News, “Putin may well try and play it to his people that this is NATO expanding – technically that is correct – but why is it expanding?
“Because there is a growing concern among countries like Finland and Sweden that Russia represents a threat to them and it is therefore not unreasonable that those two countries are seeking the overall protection of the NATO umbrella.”
He added, “There will be tensions and of course those tensions will rise, unsurprisingly, when at some point in the future other NATO countries make deterrent deployments in Finnish territory along the Russian border.”
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