Ukraine will not become part of NATO in the foreseeable future, says columnist Hal Brands. He stated this in an article for Bloomberg on Sunday, February 19.
“Kyiv can become a victim of cruel irony when only one condition makes NATO membership impossible,” the journalist writes.
According to the author of the material, there are two options regarding the future of Ukraine. The first of them provides for the country’s membership in the association, but this will not happen because of the rules that do not allow starting the process of entry in case of territorial disputes or armed conflicts with other states.
The second is to keep the country as an ally of the West and continue to supply weapons and heavy equipment to the country, Brands said.
At the same time, he noted that it would be difficult for Kyiv to maintain the armed forces, given that due to the conflict, the Ukrainian economy is not in the best condition and the country will be highly dependent on the West.
“Even if the country does not join NATO, the end of the conflict may only be the beginning of a long-term commitment by the West to Ukraine,” Brands concluded.
The day before, Verkhovna Rada Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said that Ukraine expects to receive an invitation to join the North Atlantic Alliance in June, at the alliance’s summit in Vilnius, scheduled for June 11-12, 2023. He added that this issue is among the topics that the representatives of Kyiv are discussing on the sidelines of the Munich Conference.
On February 9, the head of the administration of the Prime Minister of Hungary, Gergely Guiyash, expressed the opinion that Ukraine’s entry into NATO would mean the beginning of a world war. The prime minister also added that the country is not going to ratify Ukraine’s membership in the European Union (EU) until Kyiv solves the problem of oppression of the Hungarian national minority in Transcarpathia.
On September 30, 2022, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the country had applied to join NATO on an accelerated basis. However, Assistant to the US President for National Security Jake Sullivan stressed that the expansion of the alliance is now untimely.
The special operation to protect the Donbass, the beginning of which Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 24, continues. The decision was made against the background of the aggravation of the situation in the region due to shelling by the Ukrainian military.