Biden Declares: ‘Ukraine’s Future Lies in NATO’
President Joe Biden proclaimed “Ukraine’s future lies in NATO” in his remarks to the conference while Volodymyr Zelenskyy stood beside him.
Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart spoke to NATO leaders in Lithuania on Wednesday — where the former spoke about the first meeting of the new NATO-Ukraine Council. The council was formed to facilitate Ukrainian reforms to meet NATO’s standards, and Biden hinted at progress by announcing “all our allies agree, Ukraine’s future lies in NATO.”
Allies all agreed to lift the requirements for the membership action plan for Ukraine and to create a path to NATO’s membership while Ukraine continues to make progress on necessary reforms. But we’re not waiting for that process to be finished to make the long-term commitments that we’re making to Ukraine’s security…
Mr. Zelensky and I talked about the kind of guarantees we could make in the meantime. When I was in Ukraine and when we met in other places. And so today, the long-term commitments we’re making are backed up by the notion that in the meantime, we’re going to provide security to Ukraine for speed and against any aggression that may occur.
Today, the members of the G7 are launching a joint declaration of support for Ukraine to make it clear that our support will last long into the future. This starts a process by which each of our nations and any other nation who wishes to participate will negotiate long-term bilateral security commitments with and to Ukraine. We’re going to help Ukraine build a strong, capable defense across land, air and sea, which will force of stability in the region and deter against any and all threats.
In recent interviews, Zelenskyy has retained hope of Ukraine joining NATO while his country prepares its counteroffensive against Russia’s ongoing invasion. The Ukrainian president has been frustrated with the timeframe of the invitation to join NATO, however, which has been compounded by the Biden administration’s stance that the war against Russia has to end before Ukraine can join the alliance.
Zelenskyy spoke after Biden, and in his translated remarks, he seemed to set his frustrations aside by agreeing that “after the war, Ukraine will be in NATO.”
Watch above via CNN.
