The rapid accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO was made possible by the fact that these countries already had extremely high standards in both the military and other social spheres. And these standards exceeded the “average” among NATO countries. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive commentary to Kommersant Ukrainian 
yuriy Romaniuk, Chairman of the All-Ukrainian NGO Ukraine in NATO, expressed this opinion in an exclusive interview with Kommersant Ukrainian.
“In Sweden and Finland, in fact, there was no homework. They simply demonstrated their political will and joined on the basis of a declaration. Because it’s not NATO that is the benchmark, it’s Sweden and Finland. NATO is still very far from being a benchmark in the protection of human rights, freedoms, living standards, social protection, and the rule of law. How can you compare Turkey, which has been a NATO member for almost 70 years, with Sweden and its democracy? Or even Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary – they have been NATO members for 25 years. Is it possible to compare the level of compliance with the criteria of something between today’s Hungary and Sweden? No. So once again, NATO is still very far from Sweden and Finland,”
– the expert believes.
Ukraine, in his opinion, has only imitated the desire to join NATO and movement in this direction throughout its independence. Moreover, Romaniuk is convinced that this process continues today.
“No government has done its homework so far. One of the hundreds of criteria is the reform of the Security Service of Ukraine. For 10 years now, two full presidential terms, two different, diametrically opposed presidents, Poroshenko and Zelenskyy, have been sabotaging the implementation of the SBU reform in terms of eliminating the so-called economic sector under the SBU. And failure to do homework and meet NATO accession criteria leads to rejection by NATO,”
– he emphasised.
The expert noted that Sweden had been the longest-standing neutral in history, but applied to join the Alliance immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Sweden is the oldest neutral country in the world, it officially became neutral even before Switzerland, in 1814, during the Napoleonic Wars. Sweden applied to join NATO in 2022, a few weeks after Russia attacked Ukraine. It turns out that for 208 years, it has maintained its neutrality. And two years after 2022, it finally joined NATO. Today, the Swedish flag is raised in front of NATO headquarters.”
Sweden officially joined NATO on 7 March 2024, after two years of waiting for Allies to approve its accession. Sweden’s accession was quickly ratified by all countries except Turkey and Hungary. However, after a series of negotiations, Istanbul and Budapest withdrew their objections and approved Stockholm’s accession to NATO. On 5 March, Hungary was the last NATO member state to complete the ratification process for Sweden’s accession.
Finland was admitted to the Alliance in April 2023.