Nato renews membership commitment to Ukraine

Alliance pledges more aid, training, and weapons

Nato doubled down yesterday on its commitment to one day include Ukraine, a pledge that some officials and analysts believe helped prompt Russia’s invasion this year. The world’s largest security alliance also pledged to send more aid to Ukrainian forces locked in battle with Russian troops.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Nato foreign ministers in Romania to drum up support for Ukraine as Russia bombards energy infrastructure going into the winter. Russia cannot stop the alliance’s expansion, Nato leaders said.

“Nato’s door is open,” Nato Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said before chairing the meeting in the capital, Bucharest.

He highlighted that North Macedonia and Montenegro had recently joined Nato, and said Russian President Vladimir Putin “will get Finland and Sweden as Nato members” soon. The Nordic neighbours applied for membership in April, concerned that Russia might target them next.

“Russia does not have a veto” on countries joining, Stoltenberg said. “We stand by that, too, on membership for Ukraine.”

When they met in Bucharest in 2008, Nato leaders said Ukraine and Georgia would join the alliance one day. Some officials and analysts believe that declaration — pressed on the Nato allies by former US President George W Bush — was partly responsible for the war that Russia launched on Ukraine in February. In justifying his invasion on February 24, Putin cited threats to Russia’s security from Ukraine’s ambitions to join Nato.

Stoltenberg said Nato expansion would not be hindered.

“President Putin cannot deny sovereign nations to make their own sovereign decisions that are not a threat to Russia,” the former Norwegian prime minister said. “I think what he’s afraid of is democracy and freedom, and that’s the main challenge for him.”

Ukraine applied for “accelerated accession” to Nato on September 30 but will not join anytime soon. With the Crimean Peninsula annexed, and Russian troops and pro-moscow separatists holding parts of the south and east, it’s not clear what Ukraine’s borders would even look like.

Many of Nato’s 30 members believe the focus now must solely be on defeating Russia, and Stoltenberg stressed that any attempt to move ahead on membership could divide them.

“We are in the midst of a war and therefore we should do nothing that can undermine the unity of allies to provide military, humanitarian, financial support to Ukraine, because we must prevent President Putin from winning,” he said.

Beyond Ukraine’s immediate needs, Nato wants to see how it can help the country longer-term, by upgrading its Soviet-era equipment to the alliance’s modern standards and providing more military training.

Slovak Foreign Minister Rastislav

Kacer said the allies must help Ukraine so “the transition to full membership will be very smooth and easy” once both Nato and Kyiv are ready for accession talks.

Ukraine, for its part, called for more supplies of weapons to defend itself with, and quickly.

“Faster, faster and faster,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. “We appreciate what has been done, but the war goes on. Patriots and transformers is what Ukraine needs the most.”

Stoltenberg confirmed that deliveries of such sophisticated missile systems are under consideration.

The US is open to providing Patriots, said a senior US defence official who briefed Pentagon reporters yesterday. While Ukraine has asked for the system for months, the US and it allies have been hesitant to provide it to avoid further provoking Russia. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his country’s offer to send Patriot surface-to-air missile systems to Poland remains on the table, despite Warsaw’s suggestion that they should go to Ukraine instead.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said yesterday on his Telegram channel: “If, as Stoltenberg hinted, Nato supplies the Kyiv fanatics with Patriot complexes along with Nato personnel, they will immediately become a legitimate target of our armed forces. I hope the Atlantic impotents understand this.” —AP