Warships from 3 NATO countries will exercise in Finland
(Baonghean.vn) - According to the Finnish Navy, American, French and German warships will remain in Helsinki until May 30. All of these ships are participating in exercises in the northern Baltic Sea, an event taking place in the context of both Finland and Sweden recently applying to join NATO.
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Helsinki (Finland). Photo: AP |
Specifically, two US Navy ships, USS Gravely and USS Gunston Hall, and the French Navy ship Latouche-Tréville will visit Helsinki from May 27-30. These ships will dock at Hernesaari port in Helsinki, where the German Navy ship FGS Sachsen docked earlier this week.
Finland and Sweden submitted their applications to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on May 18. Earlier, it was reported that Türkiye was blocking the start of the process of considering the applications. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara could not say "yes" to Finland and Sweden's membership in NATO because it could not trust guarantees about its relations with representatives of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party in Turkey.
For its part, Russia has repeatedly noted that NATO has confrontational goals. Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, stated that further expansion of the alliance would not bring more security to Europe, as NATO is aggressive in nature. At the same time, Peskov noted that Moscow does not consider Sweden and Finland joining NATO to be an existential threat to Russia. Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin noted that abandoning Finland's traditional policy of military neutrality would be a mistake, as there has been no threat to the country's security so far.