NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg reaffirmed on Tuesday that the alliance wants to eventually admit Ukraine, a promise first made in 2008 that was a major motive in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch the war.
“NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member of our alliance, but at the same time that that is a long-term perspective,” Stoltenberg said in Helsinki alongside Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin.
“What is the issue now is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation, and therefore we need to support Ukraine,” the NATO chief added.
Zelensky has been repeatedly rebuffed when he’s asked for Ukraine to be admitted into the NATO alliance, but Western officials still maintain it will happen one day. During the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow sought security guarantees from the US and wanted a promise that Ukraine wouldn’t ever join NATO.
But the Biden administration refused to make the promise even though, according to reports at the time, the US was telling Ukraine privately it won’t be joining NATO within the next decade.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in March 2022 that he was told privately there would be no NATO membership for Ukraine, but publicly, the door would “remain open.”
President Biden said in June 2021 that Ukraine must “clean up corruption” before it joined NATO, concerns that have waned as the US has since shipped tens of billions in weapons and direct budgetary aid to the Ukrainian government.
CIA Director William Burns warned in a 2008 cable he wrote when he was the US ambassador to Russia that trying to bring Ukraine into NATO would be a major provocation toward Russia.
“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” Burns wrote in the cable that was released by WikiLeaks. “I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
While Ukraine isn’t expected to receive formal NATO membership in the near future, Ukrainian officials consider themselves a “de facto” member of the alliance since they have so much Western military equipment and support. NATO countries also have big plans for a post-war Ukraine to ensure the country keeps receiving weapons and builds up its military-industrial conference, plans that are likely unacceptable to Russia and could prolong the war.
“NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member of our alliance” – only Russian military presence in Ukraine can prevent it to happen. It gives to Russia a good motivation to capture Kiev and create there a military base.
Well they can try.
Right now the odds are definitely in their favor. Be careful what you ask for.
There’s never gonna be peace if Stoltenberg gets his way. The central demand of the Russians has always been the neutrality of Ukraine. How many more Ukranians and Russians will die over ideology?
Not really sure how such promises can be made, considering that if even one existing member objects it doesn’t happen.
I agree. In fact, Stoltenberg may soon be spending his time trying to hold his coalition together. Germans know who destroyed Nord Stream 2. France and Germany have both criticized the price gouging of Liquid Petroleum Gas imported from the US. Germany’s economy is expected to shrink this year, and German industries are fleeing the country in search of less expensive energy. Large demonstrations against the war have begun, and one might assume that they will become larger if Europe cannot control inflation and the retail cost of energy.
Yes, finally, the Washington Nazis can’t overcome their own core contradiction: good old Capitalist greed. “They will sell you the rope to hang them with.”
“Not really sure how such promises can be made, considering that if even one existing member objects it doesn’t happen.”
Zelensky stated he was clearly and unequivocally told, ‘You will not be a NATO member.’ Full stop. Despite which, he was told, publicly, the door would remain open.
So what’s going on: NATO members say ‘no’ behind doors – just as, doubtless, they said ‘no’ at the time of the 2008 ‘sometime in the future’ statement re Ukraine admission.
But – as in 2008 – in subservience to the US, they won’t come out and say ‘no’ publicly. So, as a result, Stoltenberg and the US can still repeat their war-inciting claim…
…despite Germany, for one, being entirely clear NATO was the underlying factor making Russian invasion likely:
“Zelensky Was Offered a Peace Deal to Prevent War, But Rejected It” 4/22 [quotes from WSJ story]:
“Scholz was in the process of brokering a deal and told Zelensky… ‘Ukraine should renounce its NATO aspirations and declare neutrality as part of a wider European security deal between the West and Russia,’ and that ‘the pact would be signed by Mr. Putin and Mr. Biden.'”
https://21stcenturywire.com/2022/04/04/revealed-zelensky-was-offered-a-peace-deal-to-prevent-invasion-but-rejected-it/
When Trump got in trouble for threatening to cut US Military Aid to Ukraine, rumors about Joe Biden’s efforts to prevent Ukraine from prosecuting Hunter Biden began circulating. But the stated purpose of Biden’s visit was to get rid of Viktor Shokin,, Ukraine’s Chief Prosecutor, because Shokin was blocking the prosecution of ousted President Yanukovych.
(To recap, Yanukovych was ousted with considerable US support after winning the 2004 election by the Orange Revolution. It was said that he rigged the vote. But when he won the 2010 election, that claim could no longer be made because Timoshenko was President when the election was held. So, Yanukovych had to be removed by the violent EuroMaidan coup. The infamous leaked conversation between Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Pyatt revealed that Nuland was instrumental in the selection of “Our Man Yats” (Arseny Yatsenyuk) as the new Prime Minister. ๐๐ต ๐ช๐ด ๐ด๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ฎ ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ฅ that Yats ran against Yanukovych in the 2010 Presidential election, but did not receive enough votes to qualify for the runoff election.)
Biden’s held that prosecutor Shokin represented corruption in Ukraine. But, obviously, his real purpose was to eliminate any possibility that Yanukovych might return to be elected for a 3rd time. Biden continued to oppose allowing Ukraine to join NATO as recently as June 2021 because, in my opinion, Ukraine had not ousted everyone who might favor normalizing relations with Russia.
defacto member = proxy = sucker
Ukraine Will Eventually Join NATO
that is part of the red line that russia drew in the sand.
keep it up uncle sam, and there won’t be a ukraine any more.
Or life on earth. Besides the cockroaches.
It appears from Stoltenberg’s comment that the US/NATO have given up on Ukraine and wish to see it utterly destroyed. Because that is what will happen if they keep up this sort of talk.
“US/NATO have given up on Ukraine and wish to see it utterly destroyed.”
Destroyed, not destroyed – for US/NATO it’s win-win – so long as they don’t blow us all up in the process (a risk they’re also fine with – as with the ‘Don’t Look Up’ calculation that money could be made if the incoming asteroid could be broken up vs destroyed.):
either way, they use the war for the new, re-militarized, ‘hot’ Cold War, with spiked military spending and ‘never again’ zeal not only against Russia, but in going after the next official enemy, China.
NATO keeps pissing in everyones Cheerios.
โNATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member of our alliance, but at the same time that that is a long-term perspective,โ Stoltenberg said
In the meantime, the death and destruction of Ukraine will continue. But as Madelyn Albright once said……
When Trump got in trouble for threatening to cut US Military Aid to Ukraine, rumors about Joe Biden’s efforts to prevent Ukraine from prosecuting Hunter Biden began circulating. But the stated purpose of Biden’s visit was to get rid of Viktor Shokin,, Ukraine’s Chief Prosecutor, because Shokin was blocking the prosecution of ousted President Yanukovych.
(To recap, Yanukovych was ousted with considerable US support, after winning the 2004 Presidential election, by the Orange Revolution. It was said that he rigged the vote. But when he won the 2010 election, that claim could no longer be made because Timoshenko was President when the election was held. So, Yanukovych had to be removed by the violent EuroMaidan coup. The infamous leaked conversation between Victoria Nuland and Ambassador Pyatt revealed that Nuland was instrumental in the selection of “Our Man Yats” (Arseny Yatsenyuk) as the new Prime Minister. ๐๐ต ๐ช๐ด ๐ด๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ฎ ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ฅ that Yats ran against Yanukovych in the 2010 Presidential election, but did not receive enough votes to qualify for the runoff election.)
Biden’s held that prosecutor Shokin represented corruption in Ukraine. But, obviously, his real purpose was to eliminate any possibility that Yanukovych might return to be elected for a 3rd time. Biden continued to oppose allowing Ukraine to join NATO as recently as June 2021 because, in my opinion, Ukraine had not ousted everyone who might favor normalizing relations with Russia.
Ukraine might join but it will be a deserted wasteland if and when it does.
What Ukraine? It will not exist or if it does certainly not with its present borders which do not include Crimea and the LDPRs, and the Kherson and Zapporhezia oblasts which are now formally part of Russia. So Stoltenberg is just following his US pentagon generated script as he in fact will soon be replaced by another mouthpiece of US propaganda.
Remember when the liars said there were no plans for Ukraine’s eventual admittance?
Yah, so Stoltenberg says. Except hopefully that’s public bs’ing to keep the warmongering parts of NATO aroused before citizens turn more against their govt’s new endless war. As Snider says elsewhere of what may be shaping up in private:
“Officials from the UK, Germany and France told The Wall Street Journal that, despite the NATO door that is publicly being held open for Ukraine, the arrangement would neither include NATO forces being stationed in Ukraine nor Article 5 protection. Instead, ‘it would provide Ukraine with the military means to deter any future Russian attack.'”
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/public-vs-private-managing-perceptions-of-the-war-in-ukraine/
Not that NATO isn’t fine with that…if they can get away with re-filling Ukraine to the gunnels w/made in the USA materiel now.
More rhetoric to further provoke WWIII. I guess Europe didn’t get enough destruction in the last world wars. I predict there will be real trouble if the Europeans are forced to implement Wash.’s plans to destroy Russia, since it will also destroy Europe as well.
Disband that pack of dogs[nato] now!
The hypocrisy of it all.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/03/jacob-hornberger/rato-and-nato/
Zelenski of course got voted into power on a peace platform. The total betrayal of the working class in Ukraine is no different than anywhere else in the western world.
The Russian MOD is fighting a very successful war of attrition disarming NATO (Ukraine was disarmed in March), tank by tank, artillery by artillery, air defense by air defense.
NATO overall has accumulated the following equipment losses;
391 Aircraft, 211 helicopters, 3281 UAV’s, 406 Anti Aircraft systems, 8086 tanks inc. APC’s, 1045 multiple rocket launchers, 4240 rocket launchers and 8621 military automotive equipment.
What the empire looses in the Ukraine, they loose for the final Russian attack on NATO. Remember Russia attacked Ukraine just as NATO was about to unleash in the Donbass. Russia has shown they will pre-emptively attack to defend the Motherland when the time is dictated by events on the ground.
“Stoltenberg reaffirmed on Tuesday that the alliance wants to eventually admit Ukraine…’NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member of our alliance, but at the same time that that is a long-term perspective'”
Asked by a reporter if, by “long-term perspective,” the NATO chief meant, “when Hell freezes over long-term,” Stoltenberg elaborated, “I want that filthy Putin-lover’s press badge permanently revoked.”
Stoltenberg Reaffirms Pledge That NATO Will Be Disbanded