{"id":1452960,"date":"2022-04-25T13:44:35","date_gmt":"2022-04-25T17:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1452960"},"modified":"2022-04-25T13:44:39","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T17:44:39","slug":"fact-check-have-finland-and-sweden-applied-for-nato-membership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-have-finland-and-sweden-applied-for-nato-membership\/","title":{"rendered":"FACT CHECK: Have Finland And Sweden Applied For NATO Membership?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffact-check-have-finland-and-sweden-applied-for-nato-membership%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1452960&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>A post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02w2iceysEeRo8fqX2HGZ2SudtyawYodJmW9uKUSNJCtEHGBYZiNw7LpJgVPHKDmAvl&#038;id=100077027934396\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shared on Facebook<\/a> claims Finland and Sweden have officially applied to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Verdict: Misleading<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>While Sweden and Finland have expressed interest in joining the partnership, there is no evidence either country has applied for membership.<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Fact Check:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>NATO, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nato.int\/cps\/en\/natohq\/nato_countries.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">military alliance<\/a> made up of 28 European countries along with the U.S. and Canada, condemned Russia\u2019s recent invasion of neighboring Ukraine \u201cin the strongest possible terms\u201d while calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the war \u201cimmediately,\u201d according to an April 8 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nato.int\/cps\/en\/natohq\/topics_192648.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A post shared on Facebook claims the alliance may soon expand. \u201cGuys bad news world 3 is inevitable,\u201d reads the post. \u201cSweden &#038; Finland have applied for NATO membership. Russia already had warned Sweden and Finland. Now Russia planning to attack these two countries.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This claim is misleading. While both Finland and Sweden are actively considering applying for NATO membership, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-europe-61066503\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BBC News<\/a>, there is no evidence to suggest either has done so. Neither the <a href=\"https:\/\/valtioneuvosto.fi\/en\/current-issues\/press-releases\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Finnish government<\/a>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.government.se\/press-releases\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Swedish government<\/a> nor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nato.int\/cps\/en\/natohq\/press_releases.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NATO<\/a> itself has issued a press release about either country applying to the alliance. There are likewise no <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=finland+sweden+join+nato&#038;rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS820US820&#038;source=lnms&#038;tbm=nws&#038;sa=X&#038;ved=2ahUKEwjrqK_F2a_3AhWHbc0KHZ1HCd0Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&#038;biw=1536&#038;bih=722&#038;dpr=1.25\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">credible news reports<\/a> about either country applying for membership.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a debate in both Sweden and Finland about possible NATO membership, but neither country has yet submitted a formal application,\u201d a NATO spokesperson told Check Your Fact via email.\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/checkyourfact.com\/2020\/01\/09\/fact-check-sun-finland-four-day-six-hour-work-week-finland\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(RELATED: Is Finland Introducing 4-Day Work Weeks And 6-Hour Work Days?)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Russia has warned that if either country joined NATO it would deploy nuclear and hypersonic missiles in the Baltic region near both countries, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/europe\/russia-warns-baltic-nuclear-deployment-if-nato-admits-sweden-finland-2022-04-14\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Reuters<\/a>. The <a href=\"http:\/\/en.kremlin.ru\/supplement\/5770\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kremlin<\/a> has repeatedly called for NATO to cease expanding. Despite this, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csis.org\/analysis\/will-finland-and-sweden-join-nato\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Center for Strategic and International Studies<\/a> speculates that both Sweden and Finland could apply for membership as early as June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A post shared on Facebook claims Finland and Sweden have officially applied to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).Verdict: Misleading While Sweden and Finland have expressed interest in joining<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":1480392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1452960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1452960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1480392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1452960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1452960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1452960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}