Sweden and Finland on Wednesday handed in their bids to join the US-led NATO alliance after Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine up-ended decades of military non-alignment. “The applications you have made today are an historic step. Allies will now consider the next steps on your path to NATO,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said, after receiving the bids from the Swedish and Finnish ambassadors at the alliance’s headquarters. The membership push could represent the most significant expansion of NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in decades, doubling its border with Russia, and Presi…