Accession of Macedonia to NATO
Following an agreement in June 2018 to rename the country the Republic of North Macedonia, NATO agreed to consider extending an invitation to the country to join at its summit on 11–12 July. On 11 July 2018, NATO invited Macedonia to begin membership talks, saying the country could join the organization once the naming issue was resolved. Formal accession talks began on 18 October 2018. Greece is expected to be the first NATO member state to ratify Macedonia’s NATO accession protocol.
Foreign policy of Vladimir Putin
The Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia—all three of which are members of NATO—have warily watched Russian military movements and actions. All three countries, within the Russian Empire prior to 1918, had been annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 as part of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and Russian leaders were particularly distressed by their accession to NATO and the EU in 2004. In 2014, the Baltic states reported several incursions into their air space by Russian military aircraft. Tensions rose as Russian intelligence forces crossed the Estonian border and captured Estonian intelligence officer Eston Kohver. In October 2014, Sweden engaged in a hunt for a foreign submarine that had entered its waters; suspicions that the submarine was Russian have caused further alarm in the Baltic states. However, the Swedish Armed Forces later admitted that the alleged sighting of a Russian sub was actually just a "workboat". The tensions in the Baltic and other areas have led neighboring Sweden and Finland, both of which have long been neutral states, to openly discuss joining NATO.