Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration is once again pushing for NATO to invite his country to join the international alliance.
In a letter sent this week to NATO leaders, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged them to invite Ukraine to join the alliance during its next major meeting in Brussels in early December.
“I urge you to endorse the decision to invite Ukraine to join the Alliance as one of the outcomes of the NATO Foreign Ministerial Meeting on 3-4 December 2024,” he wrote, according to Reuters.
“The invitation should not be seen as an escalation. On the contrary, with a clear understanding that Ukraine’s membership in NATO is inevitable, Russia will lose one of its main arguments for continuing this unjustified war,” he added.
The thinking among Zelenskyy and crew is that they can bypass the “hot phase” of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war by granting NATO membership to those parts of Ukraine that are currently unoccupied by Russian forces.
“If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” Zelenskyy told Sky News.
But why would Russia agree to this given its fierce opposition to Ukraine joining NATO? Because in exchange for granting NATO protection to currently unoccupied areas of Ukraine, the deal would also call for Ukraine ceding lost ground to Russia.
Ukrainian president @ZelenskyyUa told @ramsaysky NATO membership would have to be offered to unoccupied parts of the country to end the “hot phase of the war”, as long as the NATO invitation itself recognises Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders.https://t.co/yqZZ8aFrwm pic.twitter.com/NuburSX6hw
— Sky News (@SkyNews) November 29, 2024
The catch, of course, is that this ceding of ground would only be temporary, with Zelenskyy’s ultimate goal being to somehow diplomatically earn back the ceded ground.
“On the [occupied] territory of Ukraine, Ukraine can get them back in a diplomatic way,” he explained to Sky News.
Zelensky announces his readiness to end the war:
“I am ready to end the war in exchange for joining NATO, even if Putin does not return the occupied territories immediately.” pic.twitter.com/HJ58fxe5w1
— S p r i n t e r (@SprinterFamily) November 29, 2024
Is any of this realistically possible? Probably not.
“That’s because Ukraine lacks two key requirements for NATO membership: territorial integrity and the absence of ongoing conflict,” according to Fox News.
Rebekah Koffler, a strategic military intelligence analyst, explained to the network that since Ukraine is currently at war, the rest of NATO would be forced to go to war as well were it to join the alliance. Why? Because of Article 5 of the NATO agreement.
“Article 5 provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked,” according to NATO.
See the problem?
“Those who are against it are concerned about Article 5 obligations: admitting Ukraine into NATO would automatically place the United States and the entire NATO alliance at war with Russia because of the collective defense clause,” Koffler said.
Critics are also concerned because Ukraine’s relationship with NATO is what allegedly prompted the war in the first place:
How dumb is this guy? NATO membership is what started the war and he’s leading his own people to extinction. He could have agreed to the Minsk accords and a million Ukrainians would still be alive and his country wouldn’t be in debt to the US/West for the next 100 years.
— Jabroni Slayer (@TrollinJabronis) November 30, 2024
While speaking with Sky News, Zelenskyy also addressed President-elect Donald Trump’s upcoming administration.
“I want to work with him directly because there are different voices from people around him,” he said. “And that’s why we need not to [allow] anybody around to destroy our communication. It will be not helpful and will be destructive. We have to try to find the new model. I want to share with him ideas and I want to hear from him.”
He also mentioned the conversation he had with Trump in September.
“We had a conversation — it was very warm, good, constructive,” he said. “It was a very good meeting and it was an important first step – now we have to prepare some meetings.”
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