BRUSSELS: NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that Sweden’s accession to the US-led alliance showed Russian President Vladimir Putin had “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 Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, came just before Sweden’s flag was run up a flagpole at NATO’s Brussels headquarters in a ceremony sealing Sweden becoming the alliance’s 32nd member country.__The Nation
