In a formal ceremony attended by Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Crown Princess Victoria, and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, the Swedish flag was raised at NATO headquarters today in a rainy Brussels. Their flag joins those of 31 other nations committed to their common defense in case of attack.
With Sweden's accession to NATO, Russian thug and war criminal Vladimir Putin's hope of stopping European nations from joining the alliance has been dashed. After Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine, both Sweden and Finland (which shares a long border with Russia) applied to join the alliance, and Finland was accepted last year. Putin-friendly authoritarians Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey stalled the process for Sweden for an additional year.
(Soldiers prepare to raise Sweden's flag. AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
