In the same room where former President Donald Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin five years ago, President Joe Biden celebrated the expansion of the alliance that has helped stall Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The ceremony in the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, marked the Nordic country's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the end of seven decades of military nonalignment and the expansion of the defense bloc's eastern boundaries to Finland's 800-mile border with Russia.
The moment also showed how Russia's invasion has bolstered European unity since Trump's trip to the same venue in 2018. During his four years in office, Trump repeatedly criticized NATO, a pillar of U.S. foreign policy for more than half a century, and grumbled that its members were not spending enough on their own defense.
