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Will Nato accept Ukraine?

It's the largest of asks

Credit: Getty Images

Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky made an offer to Vladimir Putin. Ukraine would drop its ambition to join Nato and would instead stay neutral, he said. It would not align with the West, in exchange for an end to hostilities. It was a sincere offer, and unpopular with Ukrainians. Yet it was significant: Putin had cited Ukraine’s Nato ambitions as the main reason for the invasion, saying it showed the West was somehow threatening Russia. But today, that offer ended and Zelensky is seeking the ‘accelerated’ Nato accession granted to Finland and Sweden this year.

Will Nato accept? Jens Stoltenberg, Nato Secretary-General, dodged the question when asked today. ‘Our focus now is to help Ukraine against a Russian brutal invasion,’ he said. On Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons, he said that ‘Ukraine has the right to retake its occupied territories. If we accept the annexation, it means we accept the nuclear blackmail’. Any membership decision, he said, must be approved by all 30 members of the alliance.

To be a Nato member is to ask for Article V protection: that an attack on one member is regarded as an attack on them all

‘We know it’s possible,’ said Zelensky today. ‘We have seen Finland and Sweden start [fast-track] accession to the alliance this year’. But his request is, in reality, a political gesture. Countries like Hungary would surely veto. To be a Nato member is to ask for Article V protection: that an attack on one member is regarded as an attack on them all. As Zelensky knows, it’s the largest of asks, and one that Kyiv does not expect to be granted any time soon. Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, has responded by saying “we are doing everything we can to ensure that other countries and NATO are not drawn into this war.”

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