Stockholm
\nThe two Nordic nations dropped decades of military non-alignment and applied for NATO membership in the wake of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The countries said Finland had asked Sweden to manage the force.
\nSTOCKHOLM: Sweden is ready to manage a future NATO land force in neighboring Finland, which shares a border with Russia, the two newest members of the military alliance announced on Monday.
\nThe two Nordic nations dropped decades of military non-alignment and applied for NATO membership in the wake of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
\nFinland become a member in 2023 and Sweden this year. NATO said in July that a so-called Forward Land Forces (FLF) presence should be developed in Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border with Russia.
\n\u201cThis kind of military presence in a NATO country requires a framework nation which plays an important role in the implementation of the concept,\u201d Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen told a press conference. The countries said Finland had asked Sweden to manage the force.
\n\u201cThe Swedish government has the ambition to take the role as a framework nation for a forward land force in Finland,\u201d Hakkanen\u2019s Swedish counterpart Pal Jonson told reporters.
\nJonson stressed the process was still in an \u201cearly stage\u201d and details would be worked out inside NATO.
\nThere would also be further consultations with the Swedish parliament, he said.
\nHakkanen said details about the actual force would be clarified through planning with other NATO members, adding that the number of troops and their exact location had not yet been decided.
\nNATO says it currently has eight such forward presences, or \u201cmultinational battlegroups,\u201d in Eastern Europe \u2014 in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stockholm The two Nordic nations dropped decades of military non-alignment and applied for NATO membership in the wake of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The countries said Finland had asked Sweden to manage the force. STOCKHOLM: Sweden is ready to manage a future NATO land force in neighboring Finland, which shares a border […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431704,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-431694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n