NATO renews membership vow to Kyiv, pledges more aid
BUCHAREST, Romania — NATO doubled down Tuesday 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.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with NATO foreign ministers in Romania to drum up support for Ukraine as Russia bombards energy infrastructure going into the frigid 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 neighbors 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.”
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 Sept. 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.
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.
In a statement, the ministers vowed to help Ukraine rebuild after the war, saying: “we will continue to strengthen our partnership with Ukraine as it advances its Euro-Atlantic aspirations.”
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.”
“In a nutshell,” he said, “Patriots and transformers is what Ukraine needs the most.” Stoltenberg confirmed that deliveries of such sophisticated missile systems are under consideration.
The U.S. is open to providing Patriots, said a senior U.S. defense official who briefed Pentagon reporters on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. While Ukraine has asked for the system for months, the U.S. and it allies have been hesitant to provide it to avoid further provoking Russia.
The U.S. also announced $53 million to buy parts for Ukraine’s electrical grid. The network has been battered countrywide since early October by targeted Russian strikes, in what U.S. officials call a Russian campaign to weaponize the coming winter cold.
Estonia’s foreign minister, Urmas Reinsalu, called on his NATO partners to pledge 1% of their GDP to Ukraine in military support, saying it would make “a strategic difference.”
Most NATO allies, however, are struggling to spend 2% of GDP on their own defense budgets.