Ukraine has been demanding a formal invitation to NATO for weeks. But it looks bad, according to government circles. And the Kremlin even warns against it.
According to information from German government circles, the 31 member states will not invite Ukraine to join the alliance at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. “The time has not come for an invitation from Ukraine to take concrete steps towards membership,” it said in Berlin. “There is no consensus among the allies either.”
From a German point of view, the focus should now be on helping Ukraine in the current situation in a very concrete way. As Ukraine’s second largest supporter of arms deliveries, Germany has a special role to play.
In addition, the partnership with Ukraine should be intensified through the establishment of a NATO-Ukraine Council, which is to meet four times a year. The first session is scheduled during the Vilnius summit, which will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Kyiv demands a clear prospect of NATO membership
Ukraine has been demanding a formal invitation to NATO for weeks. At the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi made his participation in the summit conditional on the decision on Ukraine’s accession prospects being made there.
“We want all decisions to be made during the summit. In that case, it’s clear that I will be there,” he said in an interview with US broadcaster ABC published on Sunday. “I don’t want to go to Vilnius for fun if the decision has already been made.”
“Ukrainians in NATO are the cornerstone of security in Europe,” Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podoliak wrote on Twitter. Kiev will become a NATO member without “buts” or bureaucratic hurdles. “Until then: more technology, more grenades, more weapons,” Podoljak demanded.
Klingbeil: No NATO membership as long as there is war
SPD leader Lars Klingbeil had previously stated that Ukraine’s NATO membership before the end of the Russian war of aggression was out of the question. “NATO cannot accept Ukraine as long as it is at war, otherwise Germany and the other alliance states would immediately be a war party,” he told the editorial network Germany (RND).
However, the summit of the 31 member states in Vilnius, Lithuania this Tuesday and Wednesday will send a clear signal of close military cooperation with Ukraine, he said. Among other things, it is about strengthening the training of Ukrainian soldiers and already introducing Ukraine to NATO standards. And on the question of further arms deliveries to Ukraine, Klingbeil assured: “Whatever we can really hand over will be delivered.”
Heusgen refers to Article 5
The head of the Munich Security Conference, Christoph Heusgen, made a similar statement. “Taking in Ukraine in the current phase of the conflict is out of the question. That would drag the alliance directly into the war, because then, according to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the obligation to provide assistance would be due,” he told the “Rheinische Post” and the Bonn “General Indicator”. However, the NATO summit should send out the signal “that Ukraine belongs to the NATO family.”
The former German UN ambassador also advocated maximum military support for Ukraine. “We must provide Ukraine with all the military means that the country needs to defend itself, otherwise Ukraine will cease to exist.”
Ukraine: Legally no obstacle
From the summit in Lithuania, Ukraine expects “a clear and unambiguous invitation and direction to join NATO,” as the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, told the German Press Agency at the weekend.
According to Paragraph 6 of the authoritative “Study on NATO Enlargement,” states must first settle any territorial disputes peacefully. “The resolution of such disputes would be a factor in deciding whether a state should be invited to join the alliance,” it said. From Ukraine’s point of view, the defensive war on its own territory is, from a purely legal point of view, not yet an obstacle to joining NATO. Paragraph 6 in question does not clearly rule this out.
Kremlin warns: “Danger and threat”
The Kremlin has threatened Russia to take countermeasures if Ukraine joins NATO. Ukraine’s NATO accession will “have very negative consequences for the entire and already half-destroyed security architecture of Europe and pose an absolute danger and threat to our country,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow, according to Russian news agencies. Such a move would require a “rather tough and understandable reaction” from the Russian side, Peskov added.
The Kremlin knows that before the NATO summit on Tuesday and Wednesday in Lithuania there is currently a lively debate among NATO members about Ukraine’s accession and “that there are different positions on this,” Peskov continued. The “Kiev regime” is using various means to “put pressure on everyone involved so that as many countries as possible demonstrate their solidarity on this issue in the run-up to this summit”.