Finland’s leaders give green light for NATO membership

 Russia-Ukraine war live updates

Finland’s leaders back NATO bid; Ukraine makes gains near Kharkiv

Finland’s leaders give green light for NATO membership

Updates from key cities: Ukraine pushes back around Kharkiv

A man examines a crater in the Kharkiv region, where Ukrainian forces have engaged in heated combat with Russian troops. (Maria Senovilla/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

By Amy Cheng, Ellen Francis, Rachel Pannett, Andrew Jeong, Annabelle Timsit and Jaclyn Peiser 

Today at 12:57 a.m. EDT|Updated today at 4:55 a.m. EDT

Finland’s leaders announced Thursday that they would seek NATO membership for the Nordic nation, a potential tectonic shift to the military alliance and Europe’s security order.

More than two months into Russia’s war on Ukraine, the green light from Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin is the first step toward a formal application from a country with a long-standing military nonalignment. The Finnish leaders said membership — which would double NATO’s land border with Russia — would bolster Finland’s security and the defense alliance. Before the announcement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he doubted Russian President Vladimir Putin was willing to let the conflict spill over into countries such as Poland because he wouldn’t want to take on NATO.

On the battlefield, Ukraine said its troops were pushing back Russian forces around the second-largest city of Kharkiv, as airstrikes hit the Chernihiv region further north. . With the conflict disrupting European crop exports and driving up food costs around the globe, President Biden has unveiled new policies to ramp up U.S. agricultural production.

Here’s what else to know

Many Ukrainian refugees who have fled the fighting into Russia are reportedly being forced to submit to strip searches and interrogations, put through “filtration camps” or stripped of their documents. Moscow has dismissed the allegations.

Ukraine’s prosecutor general said the country will try a Russian soldier who is in custody. The 21-year-old would be the first to stand trial on a war crimes charge in the conflict.

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