Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg address media at the NATO Summit (NATO)
VILNIUS — After an initial outburst, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy today gave a more measured assessment of NATO’s decision not to issue the eastern European country with a definitive timeline for an alliance membership invitation, which he had hoped to secure from a NATO summit communiqué.
Allies shattered that ambition on Tuesday by committing to an invitation only when “members agree and conditions are met,” thereby leaving Kyiv without an accession timeline.
Earlier this week Zelenskyy called such a scenario “absurd” but softened his position today by acknowledging that the removal of NATO’s Membership Action Plan (MAP), outlined in the communiqué, represents a “technical signal” of support and welcomed a long term G7 security guarantee declaration, due to be signed Wednesday.
Under that declaration, G7 countries Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, “will provide more defence equipment, increase and accelerate intelligence sharing, bolster support for cyber and hybrid threat defences, expand training programmes and military exercises, and develop Ukraine’s industrial base,” according to a UK foreign ministry statement.
Zelenskyy also said that when he meets US President Joe Biden today, he will “raise” a request for long-range weapon supplies, though he did not mention any weapon specifically.
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He noted the Biden administration’s recent decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine and said any controversy over the decision did not, in his view, account for “fairness” or the tragic circumstances of Russia killing “our people” over the last nine years.
Speaking alongside Zelenskyy, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stressed that Ukraine’s membership of the alliance will be tied to a “one step process” instead of two, following MAP withdrawal, and insisted “Ukraine is now closer to NATO than ever before.”
He added, “Today we meet as equals. I look forward to the day we meet as allies.”
Stoltenberg also stressed that a new multi-year assistance program announced earlier this week will support Ukraine’s transition away from Soviet-era weapons to NATO “equipment and standards.”
He confirmed that F-16 training for Ukraine will begin “as soon as possible” and will “enable a later decision” to provide the aircraft to Kyiv, again underlining that the fighter jets are likely to be part of the Ukraine Air Force once the conflict with Russia ends.
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Kajsa Ollongren, Netherlands defense minister, said today in Vilnius that any decision to send the aircraft to Ukraine for combat operations against Russia, once training had finished, would require US approval, but Washington had long been opposed to that idea. The White House’s decision to allow the training of Ukrainian pilots on F-16s in Europe, however, suggests a softening in the Biden administration’s stance on restrictions on the fighter jet.
