Kiev demands clarity on NATO membership path
3 Min Read
Ukraine is growing increasingly doubtful about the likelihood of Ukraine joining NATO any time in the near future.
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NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev during his first official visit as Secretary-General on October 3, 2024. (NATO)
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha delivered a strong message to NATO on Tuesday, stating that Kiev "will not accept" any security guarantees other than full NATO membership.
In a letter to his NATO counterparts, Sybiha emphasized that “the only real security guarantee for Ukraine, as well as a deterrent to further Russian aggression against Ukraine and other states, is Ukraine’s full membership in NATO.”
He further asserted, “We will not accept any alternatives, surrogates or substitutes for Ukraine’s full membership in NATO,” noting that only this step would effectively counter Russia.
The top Ukrainian official highlighted that past agreements, like the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which was meant to safeguard Ukraine after it relinquished its nuclear weapons, ultimately proved meaningless.
"Not providing Ukraine with real, effective security guarantees in the 1990s was a strategic mistake that Moscow exploited. This mistake must be corrected," Sybiha wrote.
The big picture
The letter comes ahead of a NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss continued support for Ukraine. However, despite Kiev’s appeal, no major moves toward inviting Ukraine into the alliance are expected during the summit.
Officials in Kiev are growing increasingly skeptical about the likelihood of Ukraine joining NATO in the near future, especially after US President-elect Donald Trump suggested delaying Ukraine’s NATO membership for at least 20 years as part of a potential peace agreement with Russia.
"I think that the moment that could have been for an invitation to NATO was not used by the current administration," said Ukraine’s Justice Minister Olga Stefanishyna last week, referring to US President Joe Biden’s administration.
Kremlin deems Ukraine's full NATO membership unacceptable
Commenting on this issue, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on Tuesday that Ukraine's full NATO membership would be "unacceptable" for Russia, describing it as a "threatening event".
Earlier, the European Pravda news portal reported that on the day of the NATO ministerial meeting, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry released its official stance on security guarantees, emphasizing that full NATO membership is the "only real guarantee" for Ukraine's security and a deterrent to further Russian aggression.
Peskov responded by stating, "This is in absolute contrast to our thesis on the indivisibility of security, and the security of one country cannot be ensured at the expense of the security of another country. This is an immutable rule of international relations, which we are guided by."
He added that such a decision would be "simply unacceptable for us, because it is an event that threatens us" and emphasized that it does not address the "root causes of what is happening now."
