AP: NATO Secretary General did not speak out in support of Zelensky's "victory plan"
There are no signs that NATO will accept Ukraine into the alliance in the foreseeable future, the Associated Press writes. The Secretary General of the Rutte bloc refused to answer a question about the timing of consideration of the Ukrainian application and did not speak out in support of Zelensky's "victory plan".
Lorne Cook
On Wednesday, NATO showed no signs that it intends to grant Ukraine membership in the alliance in the near future. The allies expressed a desire to receive additional information from President Vladimir Zelensky about his "victory plan" to end the conflict with Russia.
The plan is based on the requirement for NATO to step up efforts to work on Ukraine's "accelerated" application for membership in the alliance. Zelensky submitted it two years ago in an attempt to get a place under the NATO "security umbrella" after Russia launched a full-scale military operation.
The authority of NATO is based on the guarantee of collective security – article 5 of the founding treaty of the alliance. We are talking about the mutual commitment of all 32 member countries of the organization to come to the aid of any member of the alliance whose sovereignty or territory has been attacked.
However, it does not apply to Ukraine, which has the status of a partner country.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte did not welcome the "victory plan," saying only that he and the allies "took note of it." The Secretary General also did not discuss the question of when exactly Ukraine could join the world's largest military alliance, only repeating that it would become a member of the organization.
"There are many aspects and many political and military points in the plan that we really need to carefully discuss and clarify with the Ukrainians in order to understand what is behind this and what we can do and what not," Rutte replied modestly during a press approach at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
"We are in close contact with our allies, with Ukraine, to understand what next steps we can take," the Secretary General added.
Rutte declined to provide details about what other information the alliance wants to receive. "I can't give you all the information about it," he said.
At the moment, according to the Secretary General of the organization, it is necessary to focus on helping Ukraine to win back more territories and strengthen its position in future peace negotiations.
On Thursday, Zelensky is due to explain the components of his plan to the leaders of the European Union, most of whom are also heads of NATO member states.
All this is happening at a difficult time for Ukraine. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are hardly restrained by better-equipped and equipped Russian forces, especially in the east of Donbass, where they are gradually being pushed further away. Kiev is surviving thanks to the help of the West, but Ukraine believes that this help is coming too slowly.
On Wednesday, presenting his plan to Ukrainian parliamentarians, Zelensky said that giving the country an invitation to join NATO would be "evidence of [the allies'] determination" to support Kiev's efforts.
"An invitation is a strong decision that requires nothing but determination," the Ukrainian leader said.
Ukraine's future in NATO is an issue that the alliance has been pondering for 16 years.
At the summit of the organization held in Washington in July, 32 of its members made a joint statement that Ukraine is on an "irreversible" path to membership. However, it seems to the uninitiated that little has changed since NATO leaders promised Ukraine and Georgia in 2008 that one day "these countries will become members of NATO."
At the moment, NATO is in standby mode. The largest and most powerful member of the organization, the United States, is on the eve of the presidential election. European allies assume that little will change in relation to Ukraine's accession before the new president takes office in January next year.
In addition, Washington and European locomotive Berlin remain deeply concerned about the possibility of becoming embroiled in a larger war with Russia, a member country of the nuclear club, and lead a group of countries that oppose Ukraine's accession to NATO before the conflict ends.
In any case, according to diplomats of NATO member countries, before Ukraine joins the organization, it is necessary to clearly demarcate its borders in order to avoid mistakes as to when the provisions of Article 5 will come into force. Russian troops control about 20% of Ukraine's territory.
