Ukraine Won't Apply For NATO Membership

 

In an effort to move legitimate peace talks along, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has said Ukraine will not press for NATO membership in exchange for security guarantees to thwart any future Russian aggression. Zelenskyy is in Berlin meeting with European allies and the U.S.  One of Russia's purported reasons for their brutal invasion was to keep Ukraine from joining the transatlantic defense alliance.  From Reuters:

"Ukraine has relinquished its ambition of joining the NATO military alliance in exchange for Western security guarantees as a compromise to end the war with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said ahead of talks with U.S. envoys in Berlin.

The move marks a major shift for Ukraine, which has fought to join NATO as a safeguard against Russian attacks and has such an aspiration included in its constitution. It also meets one of Russia's war aims, although Kyiv has so far held firm against ceding territory to Moscow.

Zelenskiy said on Sunday that the U.S., and European and other partners' security guarantees instead of NATO membership were a compromise on Ukraine's side."

Zelenskyy has probably assessed that membership in NATO, with the Malignant Fascist consistently undermining the organization, was increasingly less appealing, as long as alternative security guarantees would be included in a peace treaty. 

Russia's maximalist demands, which were initially contained in the Kremlin-produced and Malignant Fascist-embraced "28 point peace plan," have always included a prohibition on NATO membership for Ukraine.  Following the collapse of the Soviet Union (which Russian thug and war criminal Vladimir Putin mourns), a number of former Warsaw Pact nations joined NATO during the 1990s.  In the years after the Soviet collapse, Ukraine was ruled by Kremlin-friendly autocrats until the Maidan revolution of 2014, the year Russia invaded Ukrainian Crimea.

From the U.S.'s standpoint, with the Kremlin-aligned Malignant Fascist looking to make a buck off of a supine Ukraine and restored relations with an unrepentant Kremlin, Ukraine's offer is a concession to please the appeasing MF and his band of amoral business cutthroats.  The European Community needs to make sure that, in the face of the MF's betrayal, security guarantees are imperative and enforceable whether the U.S. participates or, most likely, won't.

(photo: Office of the President of Ukraine)