NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte calls for strengthening military support in Kyiv, ahead of the summit which brings together 32 heads of diplomacy from the alliance’s member countries in Brussels. But there is no question of speeding up Ukraine’s accession procedure, to the great displeasure of Volodymyr Zelensky.
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NATO allies must focus more on providing military aid to Ukraine so that it can stop the advance of Russian troops, rather than on brokering a possible peace deal, he said. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Tuesday.
Foreign ministers from the alliance’s 32 member states are meeting in Brussels for a two-day summit, with Ukraine as one of the priorities.
At a press conference held ahead of the summit, Mark Rutte argued that “the most crucial thing we have to do now” is to ensure “that Ukraine, when it decides to enter into peace talks, will do so from a position of strength.
“And that’s what we’re going to focus on over the next couple of days, how to get more military aid to Ukraine, more missile defense, and better coordination of everything we do “, he added.
This meeting will be the last in which Secretary of State Antony Blinken will participate, due to the return of Donald Trump to the White House on January 20.
The US president-elect said he could end the war within days of taking office, raising fears that Washington could reduce its support for kyiv and impose painful territorial concessions as part of a peace deal with Russia.
The momentum of the war, which has lasted more than 1,000 days, appears to be on the Russian side, with the front line advancing westward while the Ukrainian offensive in Russia’s Kursk region stalls.
In Kursk, Russian defense was supported by North Korea, which would have sent more than 10,000 soldiers to the region, according to the allies. Furthermore, Iran and China have provided Russia with military and dual-use technologies, which it has used to target civilian infrastructure, particularly energy, in Ukraine.
The need to find diplomatic solutions
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recognized this Monday, during an interview with theJapanese agency Kyodo, that “the Ukrainian army lacked the forces” to retake some of the territories occupied by Russia. “We need to find diplomatic solutions,” he said.
He reiterated his call for his country to become a member of NATO as soon as possible.
Over the past months, Ukraine has signed a number of bilateral security agreements with Western countries, but for Kyiv, no security guarantees can come close to full membership in the military alliance, in order to deter future aggression from Russia.
“With the bitter experience of the Budapest Memorandum behind us, we will not accept any alternative, no substitute for Ukraine’s full membership in NATO,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a press release published Tuesday morning.
“Inviting Ukraine to join NATO now will effectively counter Russian blackmail and will deprive the Kremlin of its illusions about the possibility of hindering Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration. It is also the only opportunity to stop the erosion of key principles of nuclear non-proliferation and restore confidence in nuclear disarmament,” the statement said.
The Budapest memorandum, signed on December 5, 1994, provided that Ukraine renounces its nuclear arsenal, in exchange for guarantees from Russia.
Mark Rutte, however, said the bilateral agreements were part of Ukraine’s progress towards full membership.
ADVERTISEMENT“During the Washington summit [qui s’est tenu en juillet 2024]we have agreed on an irreversible path towards NATO,” he told reporters. “So it is happening step by step.”
