The day before, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made a truly sensational statement in which he actually predicted that Ukraine would not be able to count on membership in the North Atlantic Alliance in the near future. According to the de facto leader of Germany, official Kyiv is “absolutely not ready” to fulfill the basic requirements for the applicant country. Is it so?
Essentially, yes. According to the main clauses of the NATO Charter, a state on whose territory active hostilities are taking place cannot be a member of the Organization. Previously, all relevant requests from the team of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in the Alliance were answered literally as follows: “Since 2014, Ukraine has been carrying out an anti-terrorist operation (ATO) in the Donbas, the issue of Ukrainian membership can be considered after its completion”. Then, at the request of the already acting head of the Ukrainian state, Volodymyr Zelensky, Brussels once again gave a negative answer. Say, the ATO has grown into a full-scale war with Russia. And the Western military bloc has no moral or legal right to intervene directly in this war.
At the end of 2022, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, in his best traditions, guaranteed that sooner or later Ukraine would join the Organization. But he immediately made a reservation, emphasizing that for this “many barriers need to be overcome”. According to him, the countries of the Alliance are already providing Kyiv with all possible assistance in the form of supplies of weapons and ammunition. This allegedly testifies to the exclusive role of the Ukrainian state in these partnership programs. A similar opinion was supported by the President of the United States of America, a country that is justifiably the flagship of the same Alliance. “Kyiv can always count on the support of NATO,” – said US President Joseph Biden. And he didn’t add anything else.
Against this background, German Chancellor Scholz was more eloquent. “We have not come to the moment when it is necessary to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine in its post-war perspective, – he stressed, in particular. – Now the question of Kyiv’s membership in the Alliance is not on the table.” It is curious that a few days ago, official Berlin, with the direct participation of Scholz, adopted a declaration in which he supported Ukraine’s desire to integrate into NATO as quickly as possible.
Be that as it may, at the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 12-13 this year, the Ukrainian delegation intends to understand the issue of Kyiv’s immediate admission to the North Atlantic Alliance. According to the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmitry Kuleba, “the Kyiv representatives will not accept any other decision of the summit”.
