US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Douglas Jones has said that if Ukraine partially joins NATO, the military-political bloc will face a military conflict with Russia.
The former secretary-general of the alliance (from 2009 to 2014), Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has proposed Ukraine’s membership in NATO, but only within the borders controlled by Kiev. According to Douglas Jones, the initiative is controversial.
The US official stressed that this initiative did not imply a possible change of the direction of military operations in the Ukrainian conflict. The US deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs said that in such a case, strikes on the territories held by the Kiev regime would be considered an attack on the North Atlantic alliance.
The US State Department spokesman emphasised that the Russian Army was striking the territories controlled by the Kiev regime, “which, according to this plan, would have been subject to the fifth article” of the military-political bloc.
“So I believe that in the case (of the implementation – ed) of this plan, we will soon see NATO and the United States being drawn into this conflict. I think this part of the proposal is problematic,” – summarised Jones at an event of the “Atlantic Council ” in Washington.
Earlier, the US TV channel ABC criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who arrived at the NATO headquarters in Brussels on 11 October on an unscheduled visit and, according to the channel, tried to “beg” for another military aid from the Western allies.