Erdogan boosts NATO’s hand

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s change of heart over Swedish membership of NATO is a strategic poke in the eye for Vladimir Putin. For months Mr Erdogan has been torn between intense pressure from his “close friend” Mr Putin demanding he use the veto power each current NATO member has to block the accession of a new member and concerted Western pressure demanding he approve Stockholm’s application.

On Monday, ahead of the NATO summit in Vilnius, Mr Erdogan finally agreed to support Swedish accession to membership of the world’s most formidable military alliance. That means Mr Putin’s assault on Ukraine, as The Times reported, has “wrenched” Sweden out of more than two centuries of neutrality and aligned it firmly with the West in confronting the Russian despot. That is a crucial achievement for the West. It means, too, that Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orban, another former Putin admirer who was pressured by Moscow to block Sweden’s membership, will no longer do so.

NATO’s expansion to 32 members also means the “nightmare scenario” Mr Putin spoke of to justify his Ukraine invasion – that NATO was advancing eastwards towards his borders and he had to invade Ukraine to halt it from becoming a NATO member, too – has become a reality for the Kremlin. Mr Erdogan’s decision, as the leader of a major NATO member with the alliance’s second-biggest army, shows how isolated Mr Putin is even from those he spoke of as friends. Mr Orban, no less than Mr Erdogan, has given Mr Putin a reality check that adds to the Kremlin ruler’s military woes amid the continuing ferment surrounding last month’s insurrection led by Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

As with Finland, Sweden’s assured NATO membership is a crucial development in the NATO-led fight against Mr Putin’s neo-imperialist ambitions. It paves the way for the alliance to expand across more than 1600km of territory straddling the Baltic Sea, shifting the balance of power in northern Europe and creating a potential choke point for Russian warships and aircraft in the region. Sweden, along with Finland’s accession, also adds significant military heft to the alliance. That includes hundreds of warplanes and tanks and tens of thousands of soldiers. Mr Putin’s military misadventure in Ukraine has just got worse for him; NATO, with its article 5 pledge of collective defence and coming to the aid of any member under attack, is on his doorstep. He has no one to blame but his own stupidity in attacking Ukraine.

Ukraine’s application to join will be a significant discussion point at the Vilnius summit. It is one NATO leaders must not squib. The caution of those who believe granting Kyiv membership would be a bridge too far in provoking Mr Putin, with his armoury of nuclear weapons, is understandable. But the counterargument is that the only way to thwart Mr Putin decisively is to give Ukraine NATO membership and the protection of the alliance’s article 5 pledge of collective defence. Whatever NATO members decide, Kyiv’s application will have a profound effect on the course of the war.