KYIV, Ukraine – President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has responded to Russia’s announcement that it has annexed four Ukrainian provinces by announcing that Ukraine is applying to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
“We are taking our decisive step by signing Ukraine’s accelerated application for NATO membership,” Zelensky said in a statement posted on the president’s website. He said Ukraine has worked closely with NATO and suggested that the Ukrainian military has helped secure alliance members in Europe against Russian aggression by inflicting defeats on the Russian military on the battlefield. in Ukraine.
“It is in Ukraine that the fate of democracy in the face of autocracy is being decided,” he said. “It is here, with the solidity of our national borders, that we can guarantee the stability of the borders of all European countries. Mr. Zelensky said the Ukrainian app can be fast tracked similar to the Swedish and Finnish apps.
There was no immediate comment from NATO or the alliance’s secretary general.
Ukraine’s desire to join the alliance has long been a source of conflict with Russia, which sees NATO’s eastward expansion as an existential threat. President Vladimir V. Putin has said that NATO expansion will expose Russia to Western missiles on its doorstep, and it appears to be one of the preconditions for his invasion.
In February, Mr. Zelensky emphasized his country’s ambition to join NATO, an aspiration enshrined in Ukraine’s Constitution. since 2019. But by March, when war with Russia broke out, Mr. Zelensky withdrew, signaling that his country needed to accept that may never join.
Ukraine’s application to join NATO could face major obstacles – something the President of Ukraine seems to have acknowledged, noting that he is aware that admission of a country requires the unanimous consent of all. all 30 NATO members.
“We know it can happen,” Mr. Zelensky said in his statement, pointing to recent examples of Finland and Sweden working on the accession process. “This is fair,” he added. “This is also fair to Ukraine.”
There is no doubt that Ukraine will benefit from NATO determine the platform, which states that “an armed attack” against any member is considered an attack against all of them. However, as an alliance based on the doctrine of mutual defense, it is very unlikely that a country is involved in war.
American officials have said they will not appease Mr. Putin by quashing Kyiv’s coalition ambitions. However, Washington and its European allies have also been wary of turning against Russia and risking a wider war, and it remains to be seen if Putin’s annexation of parts of Ukraine can change that. How to change the calculation of the alliance.
France and Germany, among others, have in the past opposed or doubted the inclusion of Ukraine. And analysts say that President Biden, wary of further US military commitments, has also been reluctant to support Ukraine’s membership in the past.
Even if Ukraine can overcome those barriers, it may face other challenges.
NATO observes an “open door policy” stating that any European country that wants to join can do so, if that country meets certain requirements. Among them is a commitment to democracy, individual freedom and support for the rule of law. While Ukrainian leaders say their country meets that threshold, some American and European officials argue the opposite.
