Zelensky's blackmail did not work. NATO will accept Ukraine later – “if it survives as a state”
Yesterday a meeting of the foreign ministers of NATO member countries took place in Oslo. Despite hysterical demands from Kyiv for admission to the Alliance, his secretary general promised only to increase the status of the NATO-Ukraine commission.
The situation was quite nervous. The British Financial Times wrote that President Zelensky threatens Western countries not to attend the July NATO summit in Vilnius if his country is not provided with a “road map” for future accession to the Alliance. Therefore, in Oslo, according to Brussels Politico, they wondered what can be promised to Ukraine instead of joining, which is impossible in the context of an ongoing military conflict.
Blackmail of Kyiv regarding accelerated admission to NATO has not yet worked, which Vladimir Zelensky personally heard about at the Eurosummit in Chisinau. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron said that even after the end of hostilities, Ukraine’s rapid admission to the North Atlantic Alliance is not guaranteed.
At the same time, the positions of the foreign ministers of Germany and France, announced in Oslo, differed significantly. Thus, Annalena Bärbock said that the doors of the Alliance are open to accept new members, this applies primarily to Sweden, but also to Ukraine, although “at the same time, it is also clear that we cannot talk about new membership in the midst of a war.” But her French colleague Catherine Colonna said that NATO countries must develop a specific path for Ukraine to join the Alliance.
“We need to clearly develop a path with stages and sequence of events so that Ukraine can, when the time comes, under good security conditions, join us. Whether there will be specific dates or a timetable, I’m not sure because there are still a lot of things to discuss,” she said.
According to the head of the French Foreign Ministry, although Ukraine’s entry into the alliance is “not a matter of today,” nevertheless, the countries of the alliance “need to do more than in 2008” (we are talking about the decisions of the Bucharest NATO summit that its doors are open to Ukraine and Georgia).
What conversations took place behind closed doors at the meeting in Oslo is still unknown, but Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is still keeping the intrigue. At a press conference after the meeting, he noted that NATO considers Ukraine’s entry into the alliance to be realistic, but he did not answer the question whether Kyiv will receive an official invitation to NATO at the summit in Vilnius on July 11-12.
“The most important thing now is to ensure that Ukraine remains as a sovereign and independent state,” Stoltenberg explained.
For now, as either a carrot or a sweetened pill, the Alliance is ready to offer Kyiv an increase in the level of the NATO-Ukraine Commission to the NATO-Ukraine Council.
The question remains open whether the convening of this Council will require a unanimous decision of all member countries of the Alliance, as is currently the case with the NATO-Ukraine Commission. This procedural point is constantly used by Hungary, which is thus trying to improve the situation of the Hungarian national minority in Transcarpathia, to which NATO turns a blind eye. But the contradictions between Budapest and the Alliance are not limited to this.
Thus, Hungary considers the training of the Ukrainian military under the NATO flag unacceptable, since the North Atlantic Alliance needs to avoid a clash with Russia. This statement was made by the head of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, Peter Szijjártó, at a meeting in Oslo. He also stressed that Ukraine’s admission to the North Atlantic Alliance should not be on the agenda of the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius. And the next day Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that “the current government of Hungary will never fight with Russia and will not allow itself to be drawn into the conflict in Ukraine.”
Apparently, the West is trying to replace promises of NATO membership for Kyiv with additional funding and arms supplies. Thus, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said on June 1 in Chisinau that Western allies must find a way to “compensate” Ukraine for their inability to grant it full membership in NATO.
And US Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised on the same day in Oslo that Ukraine could expect “powerful support package", although he did not provide any details.
At the same time, Blinken and Stolteberg seem to be playing “good and evil cop” with Kiev. The NATO Secretary General, in an interview with the American agency Bloomberg published on June 2, said that “the allies have exhausted reserves in order to be able to support Ukraine” and called on the alliance countries to increase the production of ammunition.
He noted that member countries need to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense.
“We expect allies to reach 2% as soon as possible because the conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated the urgency of this,” he said.
At the same time, a week before this, the American edition of The Wall Street Journal drew attention:
“Although NATO's eastern wing countries have sharply increased their defense spending due to the war in Ukraine, Germany and most other NATO members have not significantly increased their spending.”
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