Paul Ronzheimer is the deputy editor-in-chief of BILD and a senior journalist reporting for Axel Springer, the mother or father firm of POLITICO.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba warned European allies that it would be “suicidal” not to simply accept Ukraine into NATO after the war with Russia is over.
Kuleba’s feedback come forward of a NATO summit in mid-July when Kyiv’s membership bid is ready to be probably the most politically delicate level of dialogue. Ukraine is seeking to get a dedication from the protection alliance on its NATO aspirations, however a lot of allies say a critical dialogue on Ukraine in NATO can occur solely after Russian forces are not on its territory.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stated on June 22 that the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11-12 should focus on strengthening Ukraine’s army energy as an alternative of opening a course of for Kyiv to affix the transatlantic alliance.
“After the war ends, it will be suicidal for Europe not to accept Ukraine into NATO because it will mean that the option of … war will remain open,” Kuleba instructed Axel Springer, POLITICO’s mother or father firm, in an interview on Friday in Kyiv.
“The only way to shut the door for the Russian aggression against Europe and Euro Atlantic space as a whole is to take Ukraine in NATO, because Russia will not dare to repeat this experience again,” Kuleba stated.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a imaginative and prescient for Ukraine to affix NATO, in addition to the EU, as soon as Kyiv has repelled Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Ukrainian Ambassador to NATO Natalia Galibarenko instructed POLITICO in late June that Kyiv is searching for “some kind of invitation — or at least commitment … to look at the timeframe and modalities of our membership” on the Vilnius summit.
Kuleba in the interview pushed again on Germany and others advocating towards such a dedication, warning towards an consequence much like the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, when Berlin and Paris rejected NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia.
“Do not repeat the mistake Chancellor Merkel made in Bucharest in 2008 when she fiercely opposed any progress towards Ukraine’s NATO membership,” he stated.
“This decision opened the door for Putin to invade Georgia and then to continue his destabilizing efforts in the region, and then eventually illegally annexing Crimea,” Kuleba stated. “Because if Ukraine was accepted in NATO by 2014, there would not [have been] the illegal annexation of Crimea. It would not be war in Donbas, there would not be this large-scale invasion,” he stated.
Kuleba rejected statements by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán that it’ll be “impossible” for Ukraine to win towards Russia, saying he’s “tired of countering all these meaningless arguments.”
“It’s all just blah blah blah,” Kuleba stated.
