Ukraine Still Pushing for NATO Membership Commitment at Summit

 

The head of NATO says the alliance will not formally invite Ukraine to join

by Dave DeCamp 

Posted onJune 20, 2023CategoriesNewsTagsNATO, Ukraine

Ukrainian officials are still pushing for a commitment on Kyiv’s potential NATO membership at the alliance’s upcoming July summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that there will be no formal invitation for Ukraine to join the alliance at the summit, which will be held from July 11-12.

Ukraine and its more hardline NATO backers recognize that Kyiv can’t join the alliance while fighting a war with Russia but want a promise on membership for when the conflict is over.

Ukrainian Ambassador to NATO Natalia Galibarenko told POLITICO on Tuesday that Kyiv seeks “some kind of invitation — or at least commitment […] to look at the timeframe and modalities of our membership.”

“We are realistic, we are not pushing right now to give us the membership,” she said. “Let’s stipulate some kind of a commitment, for example — when conditions allow, when the war will be over.”

While Galibarenko wants a promise that Ukraine can join NATO after the war, there’s no end to the conflict in sight. Such a commitment from NATO will also ensure a prolonged conflict, as one of Russia’s main motives for invading was Ukraine’s alignment with the alliance.

Ukraine was first promised it would eventually become a NATO member at the 2008 Bucharest summit but was never given a clear timeline. NATO made the commitment in 2008 even though then-US Ambassador to Russia William Burns, who now serves as CIA director, warned at the time in a cable released by WikiLeaks that Ukrainian entry into NATO was a major redline for Moscow.

https://news.antiwar.com/2023/06/20/ukraine-still-pushing-for-nato-membership-commitment-at-summit/