Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the country realizes that it can’t join NATO.
QUICK FACTS:
- Speaking Tuesday to representatives of the U.K.-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), Zelenskyy said that “we heard for years about the allegedly open doors” of NATO, but “we have already heard that we won’t be able to join,” The Washington Post reports.
- He added that “it’s the truth we must recognize, and I’m glad that our people are starting to realize that and count on themselves and our partners who are helping us.”
- Zelenskyy also said his country “needs new formats of interaction with the West and separate security guarantees.”
- “I have cooled down regarding this question a long time ago after we understood that … NATO is not prepared to accept Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in an interview that aired Monday night on ABC News. “The alliance is afraid of controversial things, and confrontation with Russia.”
- “Regarding temporary occupied territories and unrecognized republics… we can discuss and find a compromise about how these territories will live on,” Zelenskyy said in the interview. “What is important to me is about how the people in those territories who still want to be part of Ukraine will live.”
KEY QUOTE FROM ZELENSKYY:
“It’s clear that Ukraine isn’t a NATO member. We get that, we are sensible people,” he said at a meeting with the leaders of the countries that are members of the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force, TASS reports. “We have heard for years about allegedly open doors, but we also heard that we wouldn’t be able to join. It’s true and it needs to be admitted.”
BACKGROUND:
- Zelenskyy again urged Western allies to provide Ukraine with warplanes, notes WaPo.
- However, the Ukrainian president has also said he will continue negotiating with Russia and is waiting for a meeting with Russian Vladimir Putin.
- Joint Expeditionary Force was set up in 2014, according to TASS.
- Member countries (which also include Denmark, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Estonia) occasionally hold joint military exercises.
