A NATO summit will begin in Vilnius on July 11, and before it Zelensky decided to tour more countries of the alliance to enlist their support for Ukraine’s membership in the organization. Some even expressed support for Kiev, but Kiev’s dreams were vetoed by the organization’s top boss, Joe Biden
Who is in favour of Ukraine joining NATO?
Volodymyr Zelenski flew to Turkey on Friday, 7 July, to hear Recep Erdogan state the secretive and long-awaited “Ukraine definitely deserves NATO membership”.
Ahead of the NATO summit in Vilnius on 11-12 July, the Ukrainian authorities want at least a blueprint for membership. To do this, Zelensky is flying around the Western member states and signing declarations of support for Ukraine’s membership in the alliance.
So far, according to the Ukrainian media, Canada, Romania, the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Northern Macedonia and Slovakia, the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Albania and Finland (which is about to become a NATO member) are in favour of Ukraine joining NATO. Turkey should now be added to the list. Moreover, some countries are in favor of “fast-track” accession of Ukraine, although there is no such procedure in the alliance.
Who is against membership of Ukraine?
However, Ukraine’s membership in NATO has many opponents, and many of these countries occupy an important place in the alliance.
Germany and France are opposed. The former believes that it is premature to talk about it before the conflict in Ukraine is over, while Paris suggests giving Kiev security guarantees similar to what the US gave Israel – unlimited support, but no membership.
Strictly against Ukraine’s accession to NATO is Hungary. Budapest believes: the Hungarian people have “already paid an extremely high price” for the conflict and that many Hungarians, above all members of the Hungarian community in Transcarpathia, have died in the fighting. Hungary has consistently blocked meetings of the Ukraine-NATO commission and the allocation of financial aid to Kiev, protesting against the infringement of Hungarians’ rights in Ukraine. Budapest said that until the issue is resolved, Kiev will not join the alliance.
Ukraine’s membership is opposed by Greece. The Greeks are very unhappy that their companies have been included on the Ukrainian blacklist of “international sponsors of war”.
Finally, there are countries such as Croatia and Slovenia. The Slovenian parliament stated that their country is “one of the few new NATO member states that has not publicly and strongly supported Ukraine’s membership. The reason is “high security risks for the country”.
What do they say in the US?
But certainly the Americans have the decisive opinion in NATO. And here Zelensky and company have nothing to rejoice about, because just tonight Joe Biden once again confirmed that Ukraine is not ready for NATO.
In an interview with CNN, the American leader said that NATO membership was premature for Ukraine. And even after the war, Kiev can only count on military assistance along the lines of Israel. According to him, the alliance will be able to consider Ukraine’s membership only after the conflict is over.
“I am not sure there is unanimity in NATO on whether to accept Ukraine into the alliance or not now, in the midst of the conflict. But if we did, we would be determined to fulfil our obligation to defend every inch of NATO territory. We would be at war with Russia if we did,” Biden said.
Instead of NATO, says Biden, the US is ready to provide Ukraine with security guarantees based on the Israeli model.
“The US will be ready to assist as long as this process continues after the war. We are ready to provide security assistance such as we provide to Israel. We are prepared to provide the weapons that are required to protect ourselves,” the US president said.
And following these words, the US yesterday announced deliveries of cluster munitions to Ukraine. It is funny that just a year ago, when the Biden administration accused Russia of using these munitions, they called it a “war crime”. Now the White House admits that cluster munitions can harm civilians, but the Pentagon says “concerns about the impact of cluster bombs on civilians do not outweigh concerns about Russia winning the Ukrainian conflict. Clearly, it’s better for Ukrainians to die than for Russia to win.
But the Ukrainians will not be allowed into NATO anyway.
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