According to Nordic media, Sweden and Finland have agreed to submit simultaneous membership applications to the US-led Nato alliance as early as the middle of next month.

According to the Finnish daily Iltalehti, Stockholm “recommended the two nations announce their readiness to join” on the same day, and Helsinki agreed “as long as the Swedish government had taken its decision.”

The claim was confirmed by government sources, according to the Swedish tabloid Expressen. The prime ministers of the two nations announced last month that they were debating the issue, claiming that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has transformed Europe’s “whole security environment” and “dramatically affected mindsets” in the Nordic area.

Sanna Marin, Finland’s prime minister, said at the time that her nation, which shares a 1,300km (810 mile) border with Russia, will decide whether to request to join the alliance “very quickly, in weeks not months,” despite the risk of irritating Moscow.

When Russia attacked Ukraine, her Swedish colleague, Magdalena Andersson, stated Sweden needed to be “prepared for all types of Russian measures” and that “everything had changed.” Russia has frequently cautioned both nations against the action.

If the two nations choose to leave decades of military nonalignment by joining Nato, the Kremlin claimed it would be compelled to “establish military balance” by boosting its defences in the Baltic, including the deployment of nuclear weapons.

Sweden’s foreign minister, Ann Linde, stated last week that a wide-ranging security policy assessment will be completed by May 13 rather than May 31, as previously anticipated, adding that “there is now a lot of pressure” with Finland’s study already released.

According to Expressen, the simultaneous applications might be made during the week of May 16th, coinciding with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö’s official visit to Stockholm. The Guardian was unable to corroborate the stories independently.

According to recent polls, as many as 68 percent of Finns support joining the alliance, more than double the number before the invasion, with just 12 percent against. According to polls in Sweden, a slight majority of Swedes support joining as well.

Both nations are nominally nonaligned militarily, but after renouncing their prior policy of absolute neutrality when they joined the EU in 1995 following the conclusion of the cold war, they became Nato partners, participating in drills and exchanging intelligence.

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