Former NATO Secretary General: Ukraine should be accepted into the alliance, but without the occupied territories

Former NATO Secretary General: Ukraine should be accepted into the alliance, but without the occupied territories

NATO should accept Ukraine into its ranks without the territories occupied by Russia. But not to freeze the conflict, but to show the Kremlin that the war will not stop Ukraine’s rapprochement with the West. This opinion was expressed by the former Secretary General of the Alliance (2009-2014), Anders Fogh Rasmussen, quoted by The Guardian.

The publication notes that Kyiv was very disappointed with the NATO summit held in Vilnius in July, where, under pressure from the US and Germany, the Alliance refused to announce a specific deadline for Ukraine’s admission to its ranks. According to AFRasmussen, at the next NATO summit in 2024 The question of Ukraine’s membership in the bloc should not be postponed again.

“It is time to take the next step and invite Ukraine to NATO. We need a new European security architecture with Ukraine at the center of NATO,” he said.

In order to ensure that Ukraine’s accession to NATO now does not lead to a direct bloc-Russia war, A. Rasmussen proposes to exclude territories now controlled by Russia from the alliance’s accession agreement. In his opinion, this would only strengthen Ukraine.

“The absolute reliability of the Article 5 guarantees would deter Russia from attacking Ukrainian territories within NATO, thus freeing up Ukrainian forces to go to the front line. “For Article 5 to be credible, Russia must be made clear that any violation of NATO territory will be responded to,” he said.

According to AFRasmussen, the implementation of this proposal is somewhat similar to the introduction of a no-fly zone – Russia will have to refrain not only from flying planes over the territory of Ukraine, but also from launching missiles at Ukrainian cities.

AFRasmussen presents West Germany, which in 1955 joined NATO, but without the territories of East Germany, as an example.

Scanpix/SIPA photo/Anders Fogh Rasmussen

In general, the former NATO Secretary General believes that Ukraine should join the Alliance one way or another. Primarily because the Ukrainian Armed Forces are now the strongest military in Europe capable of holding back Russia. But the list of reasons does not end there.

“We have to understand that gray areas are dangerous. Neutrality in the old sense of the world no longer exists. Gray areas become a temptation for Putin to attack,” AFRasmussen said.

The current Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, has repeatedly stated that all member countries of the Alliance support the idea of ​​Ukraine joining NATO in the future. As evidence, he cites the decision of the July summit, which canceled the demand for Ukraine to implement the Membership Action Plan.

However, at the aforementioned NATO summit, Ukraine was promised that it would be accepted into the Alliance when “appropriate conditions” were met. It did not say what those terms were, which outraged many people, including Volodymyr Zelensky.