 In outside the continent, now Finland's prime minister or Finland's president rather, Sauli Ninisto has confirmed that his country will apply for membership of the NATO military alliance in a historic policy shift prompted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Moscow would share a 1,300-kilometer border with Finland has said it would be a mistake for Helsinki to join the 30-strong transatlantic alliance and that it would harm bilateral ties. Sweden is also expected to follow suit as public support for membership has grown and made security concerns. Now, Sunday's announcement comes after Ninisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin said they both favored NATO membership, giving a green light for the country to apply. Ninisto called Russian President Vladimir Putin to tell him of his plan to join the alliance. Putin said such a move would hurt Russian-Finnish relations. We have reached today an important decision in good cooperation between the government and the president of the republic. We hope that the parliament will confirm the decision to apply for NATO membership during the coming days. To be frank, I'm a bit confused because I had a telephone discussion with the president that is approximately a month ago and actually he took up himself before I had the possibility to do that, that you're applying for NATO membership and we will assess it favorably. I thanked him and he was very pleased receiving my thanks. So you can understand that I'm a bit confused. What we heard two days ago was different. Then yesterday we again heard that Turkey is open to our membership but it turned back to no or let's say negative side. I think that what we need now is a very clear answer. I'm prepared to have a new discussion with President Erdogan about the problems he has raised.