JUNE 29: Russia strongly opposes the two states joining and has used the expansion of the West's defensive military alliance as a pretext for its war in Ukraine.
Both countries have held neutral status for years, but since Russia's invasion of Ukraine support for Nato membership has risen dramatically.
Why join now?
Vladimir Putin's actions have shattered a long-standing sense of stability in northern Europe, leaving Sweden and Finland feeling vulnerable.
Finnish ex-Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said joining the alliance was a "done deal" for his country as soon as Russian troops invaded Ukraine on 24 February.
For many Finns, events in Ukraine bring a haunting sense of familiarity. The Soviets invaded Finland in late 1939. For more than three months the Finnish army put up fierce resistance, despite being heavily outnumbered.
They avoided occupation, but ended up losing 10% of their territory.
Watching the war in Ukraine unfold was like reliving this history, said Iro Sarkka, a political scientist at the University of Helsinki. Finns were looking at their 1,340km (830 mile) border with Russia, she said, and thinking: "Could this happen to us?"
Sweden has also felt endangered in recent years, with several reported airspace violations by Russian military aircraft.
In 2014, Swedes were transfixed by reports that a Russian submarine was lurking in the shallow waters of the Stockholm archipelago.
Two years later Sweden's army returned to the small but strategically important Baltic Sea island of Gotland, after abandoning it for two decades.
What will change?
In some ways, not much. Sweden and Finland became official partners of Nato in 1994 and have since become major contributors to the alliance. They have taken part in several Nato missions since the end of the Cold War.
The two countries will for the first time have security guarantees from nuclear states under Nato's Article 5, which views an attack on one member state as an attack on all.
Historian Henrik Meinander said Finns were mentally prepared for membership, following a succession of small steps towards Nato since the fall of the Soviet Union.
In 1992, Helsinki bought 64 US combat planes. Three years later, it joined the European Union, alongside Sweden, and every Finnish government since then has reviewed the so-called Nato option. The army, which serves a population of 5.5 million, has a wartime strength of 280,000 soldiers, and 900,000 reservists in total.
Sweden took a different path in the 1990s, reducing the size of its military and changing priorities from territorial defence to peacekeeping missions around the world. But that all changed in 2014, when Russia seized and annexed Crimea from Ukraine. Conscription returned and defence spending was boosted. In 2018, every household received army pamphlets titled "if crisis or war comes" - the first time they were sent out since 1991.
Finland has already reached Nato's agreed defence spending target of 2% of GDP, and Sweden has drawn up plans to do so.
What are the risks?
Russian President Vladimir Putin believes Nato expansion is a direct threat to his country's security, so Sweden and Finland joining the alliance will be perceived as a provocation.
Russia's foreign ministry says both countries have been warned of the "consequences" of such a move. Former President Dmitry Medvedev, a close ally of the Russian leader, has warned that Nato accession may prompt Moscow to deploy nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania.
While not dismissing these threats, Alexander Stubb suggested a more realistic risk was of Russian cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns and occasional airspace violations.
Will Nato make Sweden and Finland safer?
There is a significant minority, at least in Sweden, who believe it will not.
Deborah Solomon, from the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, argued that Nato's nuclear deterrence increased tensions and risked an arms race with Russia. This complicated peace efforts, she said, and made Sweden a less safe place.
Another fear is that in joining the alliance, Sweden would lose its leading role in global nuclear disarmament efforts. Many of Sweden's Nato-sceptics look back to the period between the 1960s and '80s, when Sweden used its neutrality to position itself as an international mediator.
Joining Nato would be abandoning that dream, Ms Solomon said.
Finland's neutrality was very different. It came about as a condition of peace imposed by the Soviet Union in a 1948 "friendship agreement". It was seen as a pragmatic way of surviving and maintaining the country's independence.
If Sweden's neutrality was a matter of identity and ideology, in Finland it was a question of existence, said Henrik Meinander. Part of the reason Sweden could even afford to have a debate about Nato membership was because it used Finland and the Baltics as a "buffer zone", he said.
Finland abandoned its neutrality after the Soviet Union collapsed. It looked to the West and sought to free itself from the Soviet sphere of influence.
Iro Sarkka suggested joining Nato was seen as too big a step for Finland to take in the early 1990s, having just emerged from neutrality.
But times and perceptions of risk have changed. Now, most Finns say they are ready.
What obstacles did they face to joining?
For weeks, Sweden and Finland's applications were held up by Turkey. Any Nato enlargement must be approved by all 30 members.
The Turkish government claimed the Nordic nations were supporting what it calls terrorist organisations, including Kurdish separatists and the Gulen movement, which Turkey blames for an attempted coup in 2016.
Kurds make up 15-20% of Turkey's population, and have been persecuted by Turkish authorities for generations.
In exchange for its support, Turkey said it wanted Sweden and Finland to stop providing political, financial and "arms support" to the groups.
It also wanted them to resume selling weapons to Turkey and hand over individuals with alleged terror links.
After hours of talks at the Madrid Nato summit in late June, foreign ministers from Sweden, Finland and Turkey signed a joint security pact addressing Turkey's concerns.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said Sweden had agreed to step up its work on Turkish extradition requests of suspected militants. The two Nordic nations also said they would lift their restrictions on selling weapons to Turkey, he added.
In exchange, Turkey will lift its veto on the Nordic nations joining the alliance.
With inputs from BBC
APRIL 15: President Putin has said that Moscow will "redirect" its energy exports to "rapidly growing markets" elsewhere.
China has sought to remain neutral on the conflict, calling for a peaceful solution. But it has yet to condemn the Russian invasion and has criticised western sanctions.
China's trade with Russia has been growing
Bilateral trade with Russia surged in the first quarter of the year, rising by 28% from the previous year, according to Chinese customs data.
In March, after Russia launched its invasion, overall trade between the two countries rose over 12% from a year earlier.
China accounted for around 18% of Russia's overall trade in 2021 - almost $147bn (£110bn) last year .
During President Putin's visit to Beijing in February for the Winter Olympics, the two countries said they would boost trade to $250bn by 2024.
However, as a bloc, the EU remains by far the biggest overall trading partner with Russia. In 2021, total trade between the two was worth almost twice as much as China's trade with Russia.
That could now be changing.
"It is inevitable that EU-Russia trade diminishes in the light of sanctions," says trade economist Dr Rebecca Harding. "The current crisis has just sharpened a focus within the EU on the need to diversify supply".
Could China buy more Russian energy?
China is one of the biggest markets for Russian oil, gas and coal.
Just a week before the Ukraine invasion, the two countries agreed on a new Russian coal deal worth more than $20bn.
Mr Putin also unveiled new Russian oil and gas deals with China worth an estimated $117.5bn.
The two countries aim to build a new gas pipeline (the Power of Siberia 2). The existing one began operation in 2019, under a 30-year contract worth more than $400bn.
However, Russia's biggest energy market by far has been the EU, and it supplies 40% of the bloc's gas and about 26% of its oil.
"Russian exports of oil and gas [to China] have been increasing at a rate of over 9% annually for the last five years". says Dr Harding. "This is rapid growth but even so, China is half as big as the EU market for Russian oil."
The EU is reducing its reliance on Russian energy by cutting its gas imports by two-thirds in the wake of the Ukraine war.
Germany, Russia's main export destination for natural gas, has announced that it would suspend the new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Supplies via a new pipeline agreed between Russia and China would have only a fifth of the capacity of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, according to one analysis.
Also, it's not clear when the new gas pipeline from Siberia will come on stream.
Over the longer term, China may want to boost imports of Russian gas to try to reduce its dependence on coal in order to meet targets for cutting greenhouse gases.
But data shows that China's crude imports from Russia dropped 9% in the first two months of 2022. Its state-owned refiners are also reported to be cautious and not currently signing new Russian oil contracts.
Could China support Russia militarily?
Moscow has asked China for military equipment in support of its invasion of Ukraine, according to US official quoted in media reports.
China says this is untrue and has called the reports "disinformation".
In recent years, most of the movement in arms has been the other way.
China has relied heavily on Russian military hardware to modernise its armed forces, made increasingly necessary by the imposition of US and European arms embargoes in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
About 80% of China's total arms imports were from Russia between 2017 and 2021, according to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
These Chinese purchases make up 21% of Russia's total arms exports - its second largest global customer.
But China has been gradually expanding its own military production capabilities.
It's now the world's fourth largest arms exporter.
"China's weapons are getting more advanced now. Its drones, for example, are one area that Russia would be very interested in," says Siemon Wezeman at SIPRI.
But, he says, "so far we haven't seen any evidence" that Russia has bought Chinese drones.
Could China help Russia financially?
Some Russian banks have been banned from the Swift international payment system.
This has forced companies in China, as elsewhere, to cut back purchases from Russia as traders struggle to arrange financing.
Both China and Russia have encouraged moves towards alternative payment methods in recent years.
Russia has its System for Transfer of Financial Messages (STFM) while China has the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), both of which operate in their own currencies.
But Swift has continued to dominate the financial transactions in the global trading network.
Currently only about 17% of trade between Russia and China uses the Chinese yuan (up from 3.1% in 2014), according to media reports citing official Russian statistics.
Energy trading between the two countries is still mostly done in US dollars. But report suggests that several Chinese firms used yuan to purchase Russian coal and oil in March.
Could China expand food trade with Russia?
China is a major importers of grains such as wheat and barley and one of its most important sources is Russia - one of the world's largest producers.
Until very recently, China had placed restrictions on the importing of wheat and barley from Russia because of disease concerns. But these were all lifted on the day the Russian assault on Ukraine began.
With inputs from BBC
JAN 25: Russia continues to deny planning military action against Ukraine, despite massing 100,000 troops nearby.
President Biden held a video call with European allies on Monday as Western powers aim for a common strategy against Russian aggression.
The Pentagon said no decision had yet been made on whether to deploy troops.
It would only happen if the Nato military alliance decides to activate a rapid-reaction force, "or if other situations develop" around the Russian troop build-up, said Pentagon press secretary John Kirby.
There are no plans to deploy to Ukraine itself, he added.
Some Nato members, including Denmark, Spain, France and the Netherlands, are already planning or considering sending fighter jets and warships to eastern Europe to bolster defences in the region.
Over the weekend, some 90 tonnes of US "lethal aid" including ammunition for "front-line defenders" arrived in Ukraine.
As well as President Biden, Monday's video call included UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Polish President Andrzej Duda and Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg.
EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel also dialled in.
"I had a very, very, very good meeting - total unanimity with all the European leaders," Mr Biden said afterwards.
A Downing Street spokesperson said the leaders "agreed on the importance of international unity in the face of growing Russian hostility".
Should a further Russian incursion into Ukraine happen, the leaders agreed that "allies must enact swift retributive responses including an unprecedented package of sanctions".
Earlier on Monday, Mr Johnson warned that "gloomy" intelligence suggests Russia is planning a lightning raid on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
"The intelligence is very clear that there are 60 Russian battle groups on the borders of Ukraine, the plan for a lightning war that could take out Kyiv is one that everybody can see," he said.
"We need to make it very clear to the Kremlin, to Russia, that that would be a disastrous step."
The Kremlin has said it sees Nato as a security threat, and is demanding legal guarantees that the alliance will not expand further east, including into neighbouring Ukraine. But the US has said the issue at stake is Russian aggression, not Nato expansion.
The Biden administration told relatives of its embassy staff to leave Ukraine on Sunday, and the UK has started withdrawing staff from its embassy.
Earlier, the UK Foreign Office had accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of planning to install a pro-Moscow figure to lead Ukraine's government.
The man named by the Foreign Office - former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev - called the claims "stupid", while Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the Foreign Office of "circulating disinformation".
When US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for talks in Switzerland last week, the Russian expressed hope that emotions would decrease.
Diplomatic wrangling has failed to ease tensions, however, and Russia's currency - the rouble - has seen big falls in value. The US and its allies have threatened new economic sanctions if the Russian military moves against Ukraine.
For months now, the Ukrainians have been preparing a territorial defence force of volunteers. They are training for a possible defence of Kyiv.
One woman member, Marta Yuzkiv, a doctor in her 50s, told the BBC: "Of course I am worried. I am a peaceful woman, I don't want to have a war started. But in any case, in case it's started, I should be ready to defend the country."
Russia has seized Ukrainian territory before, when it annexed Crimea in 2014. After Russian forces seized control, Crimea voted to join Russia in a referendum the West and Ukraine deemed illegal.
Russian-backed rebels also control areas of eastern Ukraine near Russia's borders. That conflict has cost an estimated 14,000 lives, with a 2015 peace deal a long way from being fulfilled.
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