UKRAINIAN President Volodymr Zelenskyy slammed NATO members for their unwillingness to offer Ukraine a timetable for membership, saying that it is unprecedented and absurd.
Zelenskyy has accused NATO of not showing enough respect for its unwillingness to immediate membership of Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president made the remarks as NATO kicked off its summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, citing signals he had received with indicated that Ukraine would not be given an invitation of any sort to join NATO.
In a statement on social media, Zelenskyy said and quote,
“We value our allies. We value our shared security. And we always appreciate an open conversation. Ukraine will be represented at the NATO summit in Vilnius. Because it is about respect. But Ukraine also deserves respect.”
“It’s unprecedented and absurd when [a] time frame is not set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership. While at the same time vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine,” Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine said.
Zelenskyy also claimed that NATO’s “indecisiveness” was a sign of the bloc’s “weakness.”
“Uncertainty is weakness. And I will openly discuss this at the summit,” Zelenskyy added.
Reports citing the most recent version of NATO’s draft communique state that it will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine when allies agree and conditions are met.
However, Zelenskyy hits out at NATO for its seeming unreadiness to neither invite the country to the alliance nor to make it a member of it.
According to the Ukrainian president, this means that a window of opportunity is being left to bargain Ukraine’s membership in NATO in negotiations with Russia.
“It seems there is no readiness neither to invite Ukraine to NATO nor to make it a member of the alliance. This means that a window of opportunity is being left to bargain Ukraine’s membership in NATO in negotiations with Russia,” he added.
The Ukrainian president’s remarks did not go unnoticed by NATO, with a politico report citing an unnamed senior diplomat from Central Europe saying that Zelenskyy was going too far and that such remarks is not a thoughtful and fair approach from him.
U.S. Republican Senator Rand Paul also criticized Zelenskyy, saying that the Ukrainian president might need to recalibrate his complaints to avoid alienating his Western allies.
“We’ve given them $100 billion, and he has the audacity to be so brazen as to tell us we’d better speed it up? I’d say that’s audacious. I’d say it’s brazen, and that’s not very grateful for the $100 billion that we’ve given him so far,” Rand Paul, U.S. Republican Senator said.
Meanwhile, Nato has reaffirmed its readiness to give Ukraine membership at some point in the future, but it will be allowed to bypass the bloc’s membership action plan or M.A.P. Which is usually required for candidate members.
NATO’s statement read,
“We reaffirm the commitment we made at the 2008 summit in Bucharest that Ukraine will become a member of NATO, and today we recognize that Ukraine’s path to full Euro-Atlantic Integration has moved beyond the need for the membership action plan.”
NATO said Ukraine has become increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the US-led bloc, but outlined Ukraine’s need for more democratic and security sectoral reforms.
It can be remembered that NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO must first ensure that Ukraine achieves a victory in its fight with Russia.
However, the NATO chief warned that if Ukraine did not succeed, then its membership in the alliance will be out of the question.
