Ukraine urges NATO to defy Russia with membership invite
Andrij Sybiha, the head of Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has requested NATO members to extend an official invitation for Ukraine to join the Alliance. According to a report by the Reuters agency, Sybiha expressed his hope that this invitation would be extended during the upcoming meeting in Brussels, scheduled for next week.
3:42 PM EST, November 29, 2024
Sybiha emphasized that, in the view of the Ukrainian authorities, "the invitation should be extended now." "This will be an appropriate response by the alliance to the constant escalation of the war initiated by Russia, the latest manifestation of which is the involvement of tens of thousands of North Korean troops and the use of Ukraine as a testing ground for new types of weapons," he stated.
"I urge you to support the decision to extend an invitation to Ukraine as one of the results of the NATO foreign ministers' meeting on Dec. 3-4, 2024," Sybiha wrote.
Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, Olha Stefanishyna, told Reuters that Ukraine is aware that the allies have not yet agreed to invite Kyiv to NATO. However, by sending a letter, the country's authorities sent "a message to the allies that invitation is not off the table, regardless of different manipulations and speculations around that."
The invitation to NATO is one of the elements of the "victory plan" presented last month by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine acknowledges that it cannot join the Alliance as long as the war continues but argues that a formal invitation to NATO would demonstrate to Vladimir Putin that one of his goals—preventing Ukraine from joining this organization—is unattainable.
NATO has declared that Ukraine will become a member state of the Alliance and that its path to accession is "irreversible," but it has not sent an official invitation to Kyiv or set a timetable.
Diplomats from NATO countries believe there is currently no consensus on inviting Ukraine. Such a decision would require the agreement of all 32 Alliance countries.
