Zelensky pressures NATO over hopes of Ukraine joining military alliance

Ukraine is ready to join NATO but is waiting for the alliance to reach an agreement on its entry, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, as the debate over providing security guarantees to Kiev mounts pressure on Western governments. Is.

Ukraine has long viewed membership of the US-led military alliance as the foundation of its future defense and security, but NATO allies remain divided over how and when that could happen, and whether Kiev would accept bilateral security guarantees. Offering is one possible step towards inclusion.

“Ukraine is ready to join NATO. When NATO is ready, we are ready for that. . . . We need all unity through alliance and we are working on it.

“Security guarantees are very important not only for Ukraine but also for our neighbors like Moldova,” he said, standing after a bilateral meeting with Moldovan President Maia Sandu.

Ukraine’s president was speaking in Chisinau after Russia launched its 18th airstrike on Kiev in 31 days, killing three people in the capital.

French President Emmanuel Macron called on Wednesday to offer Ukraine a “path” to NATO membership at the alliance’s annual summit in July. Although he did not commit to supporting full membership for Ukraine, it represents a potentially influential shift in Paris’ stance.

A French official said intense discussions were underway among Ukraine’s Western backers over what kind of security guarantees could be offered and how much money would be pledged to them. The idea would be to fulfill bilateral security commitments made by the countries, and then arrange others through multilateral organisations, including those outside NATO.

France, the US and Germany have previously been cautious about providing a timetable for Ukraine’s NATO membership, which has been demanded by Britain, Poland and the Baltic states.

“The only security guarantee that works . . . is NATO (membership),” said Kaja Kailas, Prime Minister of Estonia, after arriving at the Moldova summit.

But in a sign of division on the issue, Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Bierbock, said on Thursday that while NATO remained open to new members, “It is clear that we cannot talk about admitting new members (which are) a war”. His remarks came in comments to reporters published by Reuters.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Oslo on Thursday that he was confident that we would reach a consensus on the way forward with regard to Ukraine. “We have already had good informal discussions and we have agreed on some key messages,” he said.

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told the Financial Times that NATO “should anchor Ukraine in the transatlantic alliance, so the only remaining question is when exactly” it joins.

He pointed out that Ukraine had waited 14 years since it first applied to join NATO, and that was long enough. Giving Ukraine a concrete plan from the perspective of NATO membership will be one of the defining criteria for the success of the NATO leaders’ summit in Vilnius next month. “We have to create a framework within which Ukraine will become a member,” he said.

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie said that NATO needed to offer “long-term security commitments to Ukraine”.

Macron acknowledged on Wednesday that there would not be a consensus at the Vilnius summit about full NATO membership for Ukraine, but said France supported the idea of ​​”security guarantees” that would be “strong, concrete and concrete”.

“We have to be more ambitious on these questions than in the past,” Macron told the Globesec conference in Bratislava on Wednesday.