Ukraine won’t get a fast-tracked path to NATO membership, even as the alliance’s member nations have provided the country with significant resources since the conflict with Russia erupted, U.S. President Joe Biden said on June 17.
At a campaign rally with union officials, Biden was asked by reporters if he would make it easier for Ukraine to join the military alliance.
Ukraine, a former Soviet territory that also isn’t a member of the European Union, has the “ability to coordinate military” affairs in the midst of the year-long conflict, he said. But the Eastern European country has to “meet all the standards” to fully join NATO.
Biden raised issues of government corruption within Ukraine’s military and government, which has been flagged by NATO officials in the past.
“I think they’ve done everything relating to demonstrating the ability to coordinate militarily, but there’s a whole issue of: Is their system secure? Is it noncorrupt? Does it meet all the standards every other nation in NATO does?” he said. “I think they will. I think they can. But it’s not automatic.”
Biden’s comments come several days after NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg asserted that Kyiv has “moved closer” to NATO in the midst of the fighting. He delivered those comments in Brussels after a scheduled NATO defense ministers meeting.
Putin’s Latest Remarks
Russian President Vladimir Putin has long said Kyiv joining NATO is a nonstarter and that this was one of the reasons for its 2022 invasion.In public remarks last week, he said there’s a “serious danger” of NATO being drawn into the conflict if members of the alliance continue to supply Ukraine.
In recent weeks, German Leopard 2 tanks, British Challenger 2 tanks, and U.S. Bradley and Stryker vehicles were sent to Ukraine’s forces. Putin said his forces had destroyed those vehicles and tanks, including the Leopards.
“And if they are based abroad but used in fighting, we’ll see how to hit them and where we can hit those means that are used against us in fighting,” Putin said. “This is a serious danger of further drawing NATO into this military conflict.”
During the speech, the Russian leader again suggested that Moscow’s alleged vast supply of nuclear weapons could guarantee its security. He noted that Russia has far more nuclear weapons than NATO states have.
The Arms Control Association says Russia possesses about 6,250 nuclear warheads as of January 2021, while the United States has 5,500. The UK and France have about 500 nuclear warheads combined, according to NATO.
“Nuclear weapons are created to guarantee our security in the broader sense and the existence of the Russian state,” Putin said, according to a CNN translation. “But first of all, there is no need and secondly the very fact of talking about it reduces the possibility of the threshold for using these weapons being reduced.
African Peace Mission
At talks in St. Petersburg on June 17, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa presented Putin with a 10-point peace initiative from seven African countries and told him that the time had come for Russia and Ukraine to start negotiations to end the war. Putin thanked Ramaphosa for his “noble mission,” while Russian news agencies cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Putin had shown interest in the plan, but it would be “difficult to realize.”In Kyiv the previous day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had told the African delegation—the first since the start of the war to hold separate face-to-face talks with both leaders on their peace initiative—that allowing negotiations now would just “freeze the war” and the suffering of the Ukrainian people.
Ramaphosa sought to cast the trip to Ukraine and Russia in a positive light, writing on Twitter on June 18 that the “Africa Peace Initiative has been impactful and its ultimate success will be measured on the objective, which is stopping the war.” He said the Africans would keep talking to Putin and Zelenskyy and would brief U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres on their efforts so far.
