Ukraine is now closer to NATO membership than ever – Stoltenberg
Photo:AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Ukraine is now closer to NATO membership than ever before.
He stated at Sweden's flag-raising ceremony at the NATO headquarters that this demonstrated a strategic mistake by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin when he invaded the country, Rubryka reports.
"Ukraine will become a NATO ally. It's not a question of 'if,' but 'when'," he said.
"As you remember, his goal was not to allow Ukraine to move toward NATO and the EU. He demanded that the alliance make a statement, essentially signing a treaty with Russia, that there should be no further NATO enlargement at the expense of any European country. And now he gets the opposite. He wanted less NATO; he got more NATO, which meant a greater military presence in the eastern part of our alliance. Finland and Sweden are full members, and Ukraine is closer to NATO membership than ever before," he stated.
In December last year, US President Joe Biden said that Ukraine would become a member of the North Atlantic Alliance, but it needs to win the war first.
What we know about Ukraine's NATO membership
On September 30, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk, and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal signed Ukraine's application for accelerated NATO membership.
In 2023, The NATO summit took place in Vilnius on July 11 and 12, with one of the main topics being Ukraine.
In the summit's final communique, published on the Alliance's website, the heads of state and government of NATO countries acknowledged Ukraine's progress on the path of Euro-Atlantic integration and confirmed that Ukraine's future is in NATO.
Also, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have already implemented 287 NATO standards, and by the end of 2023, they plan to introduce about 200 more standards of the North Atlantic Alliance.
The Ministry of Defense recently established a two-tier procurement system based on NATO standards.
Overall, NATO has 1,135 standards, and as of the end of November 2023, Ukraine has implemented about a quarter of them.
