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Russia has warned Finland and Sweden against joining Nato, arguing the move would not bring stability to Europe, BBC reported.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that "the alliance remains a tool geared towards confrontation". 

It comes as US defence officials said Moscow's invasion of Ukraine has been a "massive strategic blunder" which is likely to bring Nato enlargement. 

US officials expect the Nordic neighbours to bid for membership of the alliance, potentially as early as June. 

Washington is believed to support the move which would see the Western alliance grow to 32 members. US State Department officials said last week that discussions had taken place between Nato leaders and foreign ministers from Helsinki and Stockholm. 

Before it launched its invasion, Russia demanded that the alliance agree to halt any future enlargement, but the war has led to the deployment of more Nato troops on its eastern flank and a rise in public support for Swedish and Finnish membership, according to BBC.

Finnish MPs are expected to receive a security report from intelligence officials this week, and Prime Minister Sanna Marin said she expects her government "will end the discussion before midsummer" on whether to make a membership application. 

Finland shares a 1,340km (830 miles) long border with Russia and has been rattled by the invasion of Ukraine.

And Sweden's ruling Social Democratic party, which has traditionally opposed Nato membership, said it is rethinking this position in light of Russia's attack on its western neighbour. Party secretary Tobias Baudin told local media that the Nato review should be complete within the next few months. 

"When Russia invaded Ukraine, Sweden's security position changed fundamentally," the party said in a statement on Monday. 

But Moscow has been clear that it opposes any potential enlargement of the alliance. Mr Peskov warned the bloc "is not that kind of alliance which ensures peace and stability, and its further expansion will not bring additional security to the European continent". 

Last week Mr Peskov said that Russia would have to "rebalance the situation" with its own measures were Sweden and Finland to join Nato, BBC reported.

And in February Maria Zakharova, Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman, warned of "military and political consequences" if the countries joined the bloc. 

Nato was formed in 1949 to counter the threat of Soviet expansion, though since the fall of the Berlin wall a number of formerly communist eastern European countries have joined. 

Member states agree to come to one another's aid in the event of an armed attack against any individual member state.

Despite the threats, both countries have pushed ahead with their bids and stepped up defence spending. 

On Monday, army leaders in Helsinki announced a new plan to allocate €14m (£10.88m) to purchase drones for Finland's military. 

And last month Swedish officials said they would boost defence spending by three billion kronas ($317m; £243m) in 2022, according to BBC.

The mayor of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol said Monday that more than 10,000 civilians have died in the Russian siege of his city, and that the death toll could surpass 20,000, as weeks of attacks and privation leave the bodies of Mariupol’s people “carpeted through the streets.”

Speaking by phone Monday with The Associated Press, Mayor Vadym Boychenko also accused Russian forces of having blocked weeks of thwarted humanitarian convoys into the city in an attempt to conceal the carnage there from the outside world, Associated Press reported.

Mariupol has been cut off by Russian attacks that began soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine in late February, and has suffered some of the most brutal assaults of the war. Boychenko gave new details of recent allegations by Ukrainian officials that Russian forces have brought mobile cremation equipment to Mariupol to dispose of the corpses of victims of the siege.

Russian forces have taken many bodies to a huge shopping center where there are storage facilities and refrigerators, Boychenko said.

“Mobile crematoriums have arrived in the form of trucks: You open it, and there is a pipe inside and these bodies are burned,” he said.

Boychenko spoke from a location in Ukrainian-controlled territory but outside Mariupol. The mayor said he had several sources for his description of the allegedly methodic burning of corpses by Russian forces in the city, but did not detail the sources of his information. 

The discovery of large numbers of apparently executed civilians after Russian forces retreated from cities around the capital, Kyiv, this month already has prompted widespread condemnation and charges from Ukrainians and the West that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine, according to the Associated Press.

Elsewhere Monday, US officials pointed to new signs that Russia’s military is gearing up for a major offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, switching its focus after Russian forces failed in their initial drive to capture Kyiv.

Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region since 2014, and have declared independent states. A major confrontation between the two countries’ fighters in Donbas would allow Russia to try to use its numbers and greater military might to capture more territory there. Western military strategists say Russia also hopes to force Ukrainian fighters out into the open in more conventional battles in the east, rather than the successful hit-and-run attacks Ukrainian fighters have often employed so far.

Russia has appointed a seasoned general to lead its renewed push in the eastern Donbas region.

A senior US defense official on Monday described a long Russian convoy now rolling toward the eastern city of Izyum with artillery, aviation and infantry support, as part of redeployment for what appears to be a looming Russian campaign in the east.

More artillery is being deployed near the city of Donetsk, while ground combat units that withdrew from around the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas appear destined for refitting and resupplying before they position in Donbas, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal US military assessments.

With their offensive in many parts of the country thwarted, Russian forces have relied increasingly on bombarding cities — a strategy that has flattened many urban areas and killed thousands of people, Associated Press reported.

Pakistan’s parliament has elected Shehbaz Sharif as the country’s new prime minister following the weekend removal of Imran Khan in a vote of no confidence, Aljazeera reported.

Ahead of the vote on Monday, lawmakers from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party resigned en masse, boycotting the election of Sharif, the younger brother of three-time Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

A swearing-in ceremony is due to be held later on Monday.

The vote was held under tight security, with nearly all roads leading to the National Assembly sealed.

Sharif, who led the opposition effort to dismiss Khan, has promised his government would improve the economy and not seek revenge from political opponents, according to Aljazeera.

The 70-year-old leader comes from a family of industrialists that has become a political dynasty.

He was elected to National Assembly in 2018 and headed the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party after his elder brother was barred from holding public office for life after being held guilty of corruption.

Khan, a cricketer-turned-politician, was removed in the early hours of Sunday after 174 MPs voted against him in parliament, Aljazeera reported.

Later in the day, tens of thousands of PTI supporters took to the streets in cities across Pakistan to express their support.

“The rallies have given the message that Khan was still a popular leader,” political analyst Zahid Hussain told Al Jazeera.

Top leaders of the ruling coalition have appealed for forging alliances across the country in the local level elections.

Issuing a statement after a meeting of the coalition held at the Prime Minister's official residence in Baluwatar on Monday, the parties urged all the leaders and cadres to forge alliances across the country in the forthcoming civic polls.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, CPN (Unified Socialist) senior leader Jhalanath Khanal, Janata Samajbadi Party leader Ashok Rai and Rastriya Janamorcha Vice-Chairperson Durga Paudel have signed the statement.

They have even appealed to cast votes in favour of the five-party alliance candidates.

Similarly, they have also urged the leaders to move ahead by overcoming the differences of the past.

The government has decided to hold the local level elections on May 13.