Ukraine will not be able to join the Western North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance during the country’s conflict, the head of the military alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Wednesday (24).
“I think everyone has realized that becoming a member in the middle of a war is not on the agenda,” he said at an event organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels. “The question is what will happen when the war is over.”
An eventual accession of Ukraine to NATO has been rumored for some years, as well as a possible entry of the country into the European Union, which would definitely place this nation in the field of alignment with the West and straying from Russian influence after centuries.
Ukraine was part of the territory of the former Russian Empire and, later, of the Soviet Union, becoming one of the 15 republics that integrated the communist country. With the Soviet collapse in the early 1990s, Ukraine declared its independence, and since then it has grown closer to the United States and Western Europe.
This approach infuriated Moscow and is said to be one of the factors that resulted in the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops in February last year. The war made other countries also seek NATO protection, such as Sweden and Finland.
But Sweden’s request has been held back by Turkey and Hungary, with Budapest citing complaints about Sweden’s criticism of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s record on democracy and the rule of law. “The political relations between Hungary and Sweden are terribly wrong,” he said. “We don’t want to import conflicts into NATO.”
(Posted by Fábio Mendes, with information from Reuters)
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
