Ukraine’s request to join NATO will not be considered during the military alliance’s upcoming summit, but security guarantees will be, according to Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
The NATO chief explained in an interview with USA Today that members were working on a multi-year support package to offer Ukraine during the summit slated for July 11-12 in Vilnius, Lithuania.
In the meantime, Stoltenberg told the newspaper that he hopes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will attend the summit in a show of unity.
“I think it’s extremely important for President Zelenskyy and for Ukraine to see that we are actually stepping up and committing to long-term military support to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told USA Today.
Zelenskyy has been pushing for NATO membership but said last month that he wouldn’t attend the summit unless he gets “a signal” that his country will be admitted, according to USA Today.
As The Dallas Express reported, NATO’s foreign ministers convened in Brussels earlier in April to discuss Ukraine’s future with the alliance. The consensus was to push Ukraine’s membership bid to the backburner and instead focus on preparing the country for when the war with Russia ends.
This has been the subject of conversation among NATO members ever since, with some pushing for strong security commitments and a clear membership path for Ukraine and others advocating for weaker commitments that focus more on its immediate practical needs.
NATO members have been sending advanced weaponry to Ukraine over the past year in support of its counteroffensive against Russian forces, as The Dallas Express has extensively covered.
Ukraine will be invited to become a NATO member once the war is over, Stoltenberg told USA Today. Yet this depends on the alliance’s 31 member nations reaching a consensus.
As is currently evident in the case of Turkey’s ongoing opposition to Sweden’s membership application, just one country can block ascension, as The Dallas Express reported.
Some member nations like Germany have voiced concern that NATO membership for Ukraine might antagonize Russia. In contrast, others like Lithuania point to the alliance’s collective defense agreement as being strong enough of a deterrent against retaliatory action from the Kremlin.
The program that Stoltenberg expects NATO members to rule on next month will “help to move Ukraine to transition from old standards, equipment, procedures, doctrines to NATO standards and become fully interoperable with NATO,” according to CNN.
However, it remains to be seen whether this will include a concrete timeline or path to NATO membership.
