Washington expects Kiev will receive a stronger commitment from the North Atlantic alliance at an upcoming summit, an American official told reporters on Thursday. However, Ukraine will not be given a timeline on when it will receive membership in the alliance.
US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith described the likely agreement that will be signed by alliance leaders during a meeting set for July 11-12 in Vilnius, Lithuania. “Most of us feel confident that we are going to be able to come to an agreement that will reflect where we are and that the Ukrainians will believe and feel is something above and beyond restating Bucharest,” she explained.
In 2008, during a summit in Bucharest, NATO adopted a declaration stating that Ukraine and Georgia will one day join the alliance. The statement met a sharp rebuke from the Kremlin which views NATO expansion to those countries as critical threats to Russia’s national security. President Vladimir Putin named NATO’s deep military ties with Ukraine as one of the primary reasons he ordered the invasion last year.
For months, members of the North Atlantic alliance have debated Ukraine’s future within the bloc. Eastern European members, along with Kiev, seek to give Ukraine a concrete path to membership as well as a clear timeline for when it might be permitted to join. However, some Western European states, as well as Washington, do not agree and prefer to focus on the war with Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has threatened to boycott the Vilnius summit if Kiev is not given a strong enough commitment. It is not clear if Kiev’s demands will be sufficiently satisfied by the proposal Smith believes will be adopted. The statement will likely give Ukraine conditions for membership, but not a timeline for when it can expect to actually join the bloc.
All members appear to be in agreement on making a significant pledge to arm Ukraine for years into the future during the summit. The prevailing vision is to develop a military relationship with Kiev resembling Washington’s ties with Tel Aviv, dubbed the "Israel model."
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
NATO – Ship of Fools.
The North American Terrorist Occupation simply will not be allowed to expand to Ukraine. Any decisions made are already null and void. The limiting factor to full military occupation of Ukraine is Pentagon cowards don’t want to find themselves in a direct conflict with the Russian Federation. Kremlin is making current situation far more dangerous by continuing to tolerate constant provocations and aggression from Pentagon terrorists.
These cowardly rats are talking about sabotage on Zaporozhye NPP.
North Atlantic Terrorist Organisation (^^,)
The ZNPP is monitored on site by the IAEA. As Lavrov stated recently, these monitors know the direction of any incoming. So, while it’s clear especially after Kakhovka that the UkraNazis and Neocons are up for mega-terrorim in order to at least temporarily to shock and unbalance Russian consciousness, given the IAEA presence it would end up shocking the Western public into turning against their own Nazis and in favor of Russia. Anyway, I hope so…?
I have seen scattered reports that the Russians are shipping out the nuclear fuel that is the hazard. I hope so.
Then the plant can just be rendered moot for the duration, like any other power plant taken and idled.
Perhaps they could spit the US by selling that fuel to Iran or North Korea.
No way. The imperial propaganda will be blaming Russia nonstop. The majority of so-called “western” public are just brainwashed slaves. Their opinion isn’t important. The imperial filth just need the appearance of these slaves as being free and having democracy to attract more slave labor to the Empire of Lies.
Sadly I fear you’re right, … that tribalism is more elemental than rationality and morality, truth and lies.
“Most of us feel confident that we are going to be able to come to an agreement that will reflect where we are and that the Ukrainians will believe and feel is something above and beyond restating Bucharest.”
It won’t be above and beyond Bucharest, but they need to keep believing, or they might stop serving as cannon fodder in our brilliant scheme to weaken Russia. Can’t have that.
Keep poking the BEAR (Russia) and it’s going to bite…
The bear has been poking the bee hive.
Dont forget who fuck!ng invaded.
Obama/Biden invaded, don’t you know?
yeah right.
Democracy in Ukraine ended with the Obama/Biden regime change, when NATO immediately trained and armed the Ukrainian neo-Nazis. The US started grooming the nation for NATO membership after the bloody regime change. Ask Nuland and Biden, both were there to manage it. But beware, they are pathological liars, war criminals really. The pipeline sabotage is a Biden and NATO war crime against Germany and Russia .
There is much more you should know. You trust Biden like an innocent child would trust a proven liar.
You confuse the poking with the bees swarming out in response to poking.
…..and who is still stealing Syrian oil.
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has threatened to boycott the Vilnius summit if Kiev is not given a strong enough commitment.”
Oh no!!! Please Volod, reconsider. You were going to be the entertainment. Now don’t forget your piano.
Colonel Douglas McGreggor mentioned recently that Ukraine was not invited to the Vilnius summit. That makes sense to me because Ukraine is not a member of NATO,
LOL about the piano reference.
The political literati get off by sensually rubbing against the guy because they hope something will rub off to give them better chances of being (re-) elected.
They were. Now I think they are trying to escape the taint of “loser” by putting off the inevitable, in the style of just not losing as done from Vietnam to Afghanistan.
There goes the piano BS.
BS means it isn’t true. Do you need a link?
Did he play a piano with his penis? No.
Did he perform a skit pretending to play the piano with his penis, Yes.
If you want to join the crowd here with BS to discredit Zelensky, go ahead. But use facts, not BS.
Are you also going to claim his desk is full of cocaine too?
“You were going to be the entertainment. Now don’t forget your piano.”
This is what I said. Do you think I actually think someone can play a piano with their dick? I don’t need anything as silly as Zelensky simulating playing a piano with his dick, or his alleged cocaine use, to discredit him. His willingness to allow the Ukrainian people to be used as fodder for the west to weaken Russia is despicable enough.
“Do you need a link? “
Yep, you are notorious for using any word to spin your comments.
His nation is fighting off Russia and that bothers you.
You want them to surrender so you can flip off your own nation. It wont happen.
I’m not spinning anything. The link would be of him and that other dude in their tuxedos behind the piano. Only a simpleton would think they were actually playing the piano with their dicks.
His nation is being used and he is allowing that. That should bother you.
“You want them to surrender so you can flip off your own nation. It wont happen.”
That is just beyond stupid. I want the killing to stop. You want it to continue.
“Only a simpleton would think they were actually playing the piano with their dicks.”
He’s the guy who did a comedy routine pretending to do that, seeking willing suspension of disbelief from his audience.
Now he is doing another routine, seeking willing suspension of disbelief from a wider audience.
We know he is utterly shameless in such efforts, and rather talented in pretending and mugging to a camera.
As Russell Crowe screamed out in the “Gladiator,” “Are you not entertained?”
Given the NATO debacle that we have witnessed since Feb 2022, the only question is why any existing member should remain in the alliance.
Sorry, but NATO is a total dud in 2023. It’s members are broke and heading toward deep recession/depression. Also, Ukraine has exposed NATO as no more than a US proxy, that DC uses to advance Washington policy interests, overriding the sovereignty of individual member states.
In reality it’s not an alliance at all. Membership means nothing. Member states are hostages pure and simple. Any member state that takes an anti-US line will on any issue will be dumped or betrayed at the
earliest opportunity by Washington DC.
Also, western media etc can hype it up all they like, but in reality NATO is a weak military force, with outdated weapons, hollowed out militaries and incompetence in military
affairs. And yes that includes the US military.
The decision to even consider Ukraine as a potential member – or to even get close to that regime – is yet further demonstration of what a corrupt, cynical ‘alliance’ NATO truly is.
The smart move for any member state is to get out while they still can.
No one is going to topple Putin with his hypersonic missiles and super nukes 4000 0times the blast of what NATO has. All those 33 members and only three with nuclear weapons and all of them a decade behind in real great game peer nuclear adversary weapons and zero defence against Russia’s hypersonic missiles.
33 members?
Oh the invincible Russia with unlimited number of the most technologically advanced weapons that no one, not even Ukraine, can beat
oh there is a timeline = it will happen next Someday
What makes them believe there will be a NATO left at the end of the war, most likely there will be no NATO and and only ruins left of UKRAINE and Europe may be in ruins too, if it stays a conventional war.
Ukraine on entry into NATO will within a matter of months drag NATO into a war with Russia , Z will be shouting article 5 from the rafters then see what happens .
I think Vilnius is conceived psychologically by Washington . They may admit Ukraine chancing that Russia would beg for terms when confronted with the prospect of taking on NATO/WWIII/Nuclear War. High stakes poker.
What they chance is not nuclear war, but the utter destruction and occupation of Ukraine.
Why? They don’t care about Ukraine.
It would leave the US more firmly in control of a broken and frightened EU, and perhaps others also afraid of China, which is a state of affairs DC had after WW2, lost, and longs to get back.
DC knows how to profit from that, in ways that include the MIC but go far beyond just that.
I believe that NATO is about to croak. All the talk about membership is just talk, the same is true for Sweden, they lost a lot for nothing.
NATO members are stabbing each other in the back. NATO members colluded to destroy the pipeline, and with it the German and EU economy, many members are EU members too. Forget about morals, decency, integrity, the leaders are committing treason, they are morally bankrupt people. The Ukraine is finished and they know it but they continue the slaughter. Morally totally corrupt people and all for what? In what way are they better than Hitler?
I think NATO and the U.S. are the two beasts talked about in the Book of Revelation.
I don’t know the book but you may be right.
It is the last book in the New Testament of the Bible.
NATO started this mess in Ukraine. NATO’s rationale for existence disappeared with the Berlin Wall. It will probably have to go the way of the Delian League.
Until there is something on paper that everyone agrees to….
It’s been the “Israel model” from the beginning. Us taxpayer pays everything they ask for, corruption included, then they immediately come back demanding more; and all for a grossly illegal and immoral cause.
That “stronger commitment” is increasing the original cause of the war.
Peace is now more distant. Terms of peace will now be even more difficult.
This is especially erroneous for the West because it is losing this war, with no real hope of turning that around short of wishful thinking about a Russian collapse.
In that sense, it sacrifices more Ukrainians to the maw of war, with no prospect that it could help any of them in any way.