hello, i m lucy hockings. finland is set to officiallyjoin nato on tuesday tomorrow. the country applied to join the military alliance in the wake of vladimir putin s invasion of ukraine the finnish border with russia is over 1300km long, and nato leaders are hoping finland s accession will improve the overall security provided by the alliance. turkey was the last of nato s members to accept finland s application last month, clearing path for the blue cross on a white background to join 30 otherflags outside nato headquarters in brussels. this is a historic week. tomorrow, we will welcome finland as the 31st member of nato, making finland safer and our alliance stronger. we will raise the finnish flag, for the first time, here at the nato headquarters. it will be a good day for finland s security, for nordic security and for nato as a whole. a defence correspondentjonathan beale has more on the significance of this. it is beale has more on the significance of this. it is
hello and welcome if you re watching in the uk or around the world. we start with breaking news from the united states and police in new york say that a man who has carried out a mass shooting at a grocery store in buffalo had been taken into custody. ten people are believed to have been killed. the suspect is described as a white male. he was allegedly yelling racial slurs during the shooting spree. the buffalo police department says multiple people have been shot, but did not specify how many or the extent of their injuries. new york governor kathy hochul said on twitter that she was monitoring the shooting. president biden is being kept up to date with the situation and in the past few minutes the mayor of buffalo has been speaking about the incident. what started out as a beautiful day in the what started out as a beautiful day in the city what started out as a beautiful day in the city of buffalo has turned into a in the city of buffalo has turned into a terrible d
we will raise the finnish flag, for the first time, here at the nato headquarters. it will be a good day for finland s security, for nordic security and for nato as a whole. a defence correspondentjonathan beale has more on the significance of this. it is beale has more on the significance of this. it is all beale has more on the significance of this. , . ., ,., beale has more on the significance of this. beale has more on the significance ofthis. ,. ., , . , of this. it is all about security. and finland of this. it is all about security. and finland has of this. it is all about security. and finland has an of this. it is all about security. and finland has an 800 - of this. it is all about security. and finland has an 800 mile, | of this. it is all about security. - and finland has an 800 mile, 1300 kilometre border with russia, and this will essentially double nato s border with russia, and if you remember before the ukraine war, president putin said he wanted less nato on the
russia and finland share a 13 hundred kilometre border and russia says it has no hostile intentions towards finland and sweden, but has warned that their membership of nato would lead to the militarisation of the baltic region. the finnish president is said to have told president putin that russia s invasion of ukraine had altered his country s security environment. speaking ahead of a meeting of nato foreign ministers finland s foreign minister pekka haavisto explained why his country wanted tojoin nato and why his president had spoken to president putin. we have 1,300 kilometre common border with russia, and it is peaceful and we want to maintain that. it s important we communicate with our neighbour, we don t ask permission. each and every member country of nato has the possibility to prolong the process. there can be delays in the national parliaments and so forth. countries might have their own concerns but i am confident that in the end we will find a solution
russia currently only shares around 1,250 kilometres of its more than 20,000 kilometre border with nato members. finland s border with russia is around 1,300 kilometres, so its membership would more than double russia s current land border with nato. and it s clear that putin s decision to invade is what has changed minds in finland. when russia invaded ukraine on february 24th, 53% of finns were in favour of membership that s now up to 76%. and speaking to the bbc, the foreign minister says the invasion left finland with no choice. we have had security mechanisms in europe, like the 0ec, which is built to avoid the war and avoid military conflicts. and now we have seen that this security order does not function in europe. russia did not trust these mechanisms, russia didn t use these mechanisms, but instead of that planned a war against ukraine. and, of course, this is something that we cannot accept.