Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said that Sweden’s accession to the alliance shows Vladimir Putin “failed” in his Ukrainian war strategy of weakening it.
The Kremlin’s invasion not only prompted formerly non-aligned nations Sweden and Finland to come under Nato’s defence umbrella, but now “Ukraine is closer to Nato membership than ever before,” Stoltenberg said.
His comments, made next to Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, came just before Sweden’s flag was to be run up a flagpole outside Nato’s Brussels headquarters in a ceremony sealing Sweden becoming the alliance’s 32nd member country.
“When President Putin launched his full-scale invasion two years ago, he wanted less Nato and more control over his neighbours. He wanted to destroy Ukraine as a sovereign state, but he failed,” Stoltenberg was quoted by AFP as saying.
