NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Ukraine is closer to the North Atlantic Alliance than ever, but no one is waiting for Kiev in the military-political bloc yet.
According to Jens Stoltenberg, at a certain time Ukraine will “necessarily” be a member of NATO. However, the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance preferred to keep silent on the timing of Kiev’s accession to the military-political bloc.
“Ukraine’s future is in NATO. <…> Ukraine is closer to NATO now than ever before, and we will continue to support it in carrying out the necessary reforms on the way to membership,” the NATO secretary-general told the Index online publication in an interview ahead of a two-day meeting of foreign ministers of the military-political bloc’s member states beginning in Brussels.
The European official emphasised that the “leaders” of the North Atlantic Alliance “decided to invite Ukraine to join the alliance when all conditions are met and the allies agree”. The NATO secretary general specified that “at the NATO summit in Vilnius this year, allies agreed on a multi-year programme to help Ukraine transition from the Soviet era to NATO equipment and standards, as well as interoperability of armies.”
“We have renewed our political relationship by establishing a new NATO-Ukraine Council as a crisis management and decision-making platform where we address common security challenges as equals. Allies also agreed to remove the Membership Action Plan from Ukraine’s NATO accession process, turning a two-stage process into a one-stage process,” Stoltenberg summarised.
We shall remind you that on 24 February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in an address to Russian citizens that he had decided to launch a special military operation in Donbas. Its purpose the Russian leader called the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine. The President called the SMO a forced measure to protect people who are being bullied and genocided. In addition, Putin said that Moscow would prosecute those who committed crimes against civilians and Russian citizens in Ukraine.