MOSCOW, February 26. /TASS/. Now that Hungary’s parliament has decided to ratify the agreement on Sweden’s accession to NATO, Sweden as a neutral state will cease to exist, a senior Russian lawmaker said.

"Sweden has collapsed as a neutral state. Hungary, a non-neutral but sovereign state, has yielded to the West. A blow has been dealt to Europe’s indivisible security. Not deadly but serious," Konstantin Kosachev, deputy speaker of Russia’s Federation Council, or upper house of parliament, wrote on his Telegram channel.

He described the ratification of the agreement as the latest blow from the West to "the principle of indivisible security that was agreed upon and committed to paper in the OSCE’s basic principles of 1975 and 1989.

Earlier in the day, the Hungarian parliament ratified the agreement on Sweden's accession to NATO. Hungary became the last country in NATO to have approved Sweden's bid. The bill on Sweden’s admission to NATO was submitted to parliament by the Hungarian government back in the summer of 2022 but was shelved because of the unfriendly rhetoric by Swedish politicians. On March 2023, Hungary’s parliament okayed Finland’s accession to NATO but postponed Sweden’s bid consideration.

The two Nordic countries applied for NATO membership on May 18, 2022, saying that this move was prompted by the developments inn Ukraine.