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Finland has officially become a member of NATO, once the entire accession process has been completed.
The Finnish Foreign Minister, Pekka Haavisto, has already handed over the document making Helsinki's inclusion in the Alliance official to the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov has announced that Russia will not leave the country's entry into the organization unchallenged, which represents a new escalation in relations with the Alliance.
"That forces us to take countermeasures to guarantee our security," Peskov said, adding that Moscow will act based on how NATO "exploits Finnish territory" and if it deploys its infrastructure near the Russian border.
While,
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01:07
Jens Stoltenberg: "With Finland as a member of NATO, the security of Sweden will increase even more"
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba in Brussels on Tuesday.
Photo: AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert
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The country
Finland officially becomes a member of NATO
Finland has officially become the 31st member of the United Nations Organization, once the entire accession process has been completed.
The Finnish Foreign Minister, Pekka Haavisto, has already handed over the document making Finland's inclusion in the Alliance official to the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
(Reuters)
ACT.4 APR 2023 - 14:52
Von der Leyen talks with Zelensky before traveling to China
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has included the President of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelenski, in her contacts prior to the trip to China that she will begin this Wednesday accompanied by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron;
a visit that the European Union frames in the review of economic and diplomatic relations with Beijing and its role vis-à-vis Russia.
"The president will speak today with President Zelenski in the context of preparing for the trip," Von der Leyen's spokesman, Éric Mamer, announced at a press conference in Brussels during which he reported that the community leader will have the opportunity to meet both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Qiang.
Von der Leyen, who will participate in a three-way meeting with Macron and Xi and will later meet bilaterally only with the Chinese president, has also scheduled meetings with representatives of the European industry in the Asian giant and with the Chamber of Commerce on his agenda. of the EU in China.
(EP)
ACT.4 APR 2023 - 13:53
The country
REUTERS
Photo |
Ukraine bids farewell to world kickboxing champion killed on the front lines
Hundreds of residents of the Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk on Monday bid farewell to four-time world kickboxing champion Vitalii Merinov, who was killed at the front lines in fighting against Russian troops.
Merinov, 32, died in a hospital last week after being wounded in the partially Russian-controlled eastern province of Lugansk, one of four territories annexed by Moscow in September following referendums deemed fraudulent by the international community.
A Ukrainian flag covered the athlete's coffin during the burial.
During the funeral procession, some people knelt in the street, while others threw flowers.
(Reuters)
ACT.4 APR 2023 - 13:44
The country
Finland has yet to decide if it wants NATO troops on its territory
The Finnish Defense Minister, Antti Kaikkonen, assured this Tuesday that his country has yet to decide whether to request the deployment of NATO troops in its territory, once it becomes the thirty-first country of the Atlantic Alliance today.
"Now it is about full entry and what role we will have in the future is the next issue we have to discuss," Kaikkonen said in statements to the press upon his arrival at the NATO meeting in Brussels today, asked if Finland will request the deployment of battalions in its territory.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has stated, for his part, that "there will be no NATO troops in Finland without Finland's consent."
NATO battalions are currently deployed on its eastern flank, in Eastern Europe.
In 2017, four of them were created in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, and last year, after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, they were extended to Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
(Eph)
ACT.4 APR 2023 - 13:18
The country
Ukraine defends that its entry into NATO would guarantee security in Europe
Ukraine has claimed its entry into NATO on Tuesday, on the day in which the Atlantic Alliance welcomes Finland as its 31st ally, ensuring that it would be a "strategic solution" for security in the Euro-Atlantic area.
“NATO and Ukraine need each other.
There is no better strategic solution than guaranteeing security in the Euro-Atlantic area than Ukraine's entry into the alliance", said the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dimitro Kuleba, in statements prior to the meeting of allied ministers in Brussels.
According to Kuleba, Finland's entry into NATO is a "clear message" of the need to review perceptions of security, referring to Helsinki's historical neutrality, and has claimed that "there is no better way than to guarantee security Euro-Atlantic than with the entry of the Ukraine”.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg received Kuleba upon his arrival at the allied headquarters and praised the determination and courage of the Ukrainian troops on the battlefield, in the face of a war that tends to drag on.
This Tuesday the joint commission between NATO and Ukraine takes place, the most explicit meeting between the Alliance and kyiv since the start of the Russian war of aggression.
Kuleba has assured that the format is not only symbolic but "politically important" and has advanced that he will ask the allied foreign ministers to speed up the delivery of the promised material to Ukraine.
NATO intends to work on a "multi-year programme" of support for Ukraine to ensure lasting and sustainable support.
Kiev requested its entry into the military organization last September, although NATO has not discussed the processing of this accession within it and has limited itself to pointing out that now the priority is to face the Russian invasion.
(EP)
ACT.4 APR 2023 - 13:03
Javier G. CuestaMoscow
Extension |
Ukrainian children forcibly transferred to Russia will not receive an education in their native language
Ukrainian children forcibly transferred to Russia will have virtually no opportunity to receive an education in their native language and culture.
"Our government language is Russian," said the presidential commissioner for children's rights in Russia, Maria Lvova-Belova, during a press conference called by the organization to explain the situation surrounding minors after the arrest warrant issued against her by the International Criminal Court.
"They have the possibility of choosing the Ukrainian language if the educational center has that opportunity", he has qualified later, although the possibility is practically non-existent.
"There are no schools in the Russian Federation where the entire curriculum is taught in Ukrainian," the Russian Foreign Ministry admitted five years ago in an official reply to kyiv on this matter.
For her part, the spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs, María Zajárova, has denounced that the reverse phenomenon has been happening in Ukraine "for years" and Russian has been eliminated from schools.
ACT.4 APR 2023 - 12:33
The Kremlin warns that it will "respond" to Finland's entry into NATO
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov announced on Tuesday that Russia will not leave Finland's entry into NATO unanswered, which represents a new escalation in relations with the Alliance.
"That forces us to take countermeasures to guarantee our security," Peskov said, adding that Moscow will act based on how NATO "exploits Finnish territory" and if it deploys its infrastructure near the Russian border.
(Eph)
ACT.4 APR 2023 - 12:20
The country
One in eight mine victims in Ukraine is a child, according to Save the Children
The NGO Save the Children has reported that one in eight civilians killed or injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance in Ukraine is a child.
Since the start of the war, the UN has counted 758 victims of mines in Ukraine, of which almost 12% are children.
Mine accidents are reported daily: in the last month and a half there have been 126 confirmed casualties, an average of three civilians killed or injured by explosive debris per day.
Before the war broke out, Ukraine was already one of the most mine-contaminated countries in the world, according to the organization.
Since then, the contaminated land has multiplied by ten, to occupy 30% of the country (around 180 square kilometers).
This area is twice the size of Portugal.
"The use of landmines violates international law, poses a serious risk to children and also hampers the ability to transport humanitarian aid to where it is most needed," said Sonia Khush, director of Save the Children in Ukraine.
On March 29, a 16-year-old teenager was one of four fatalities when a car ran over a mine on a rural dirt road in the Kharkiv region.
(Agencies)
ACT.4 APR 2023 - 12:16
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