According to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Ukraine will be able to become part of the North Atlantic Alliance after the conflict on state territory is over. INSIDE report He noted to CNN that he had no doubts about Kiev’s membership.
“We’ve heard almost every country in this room say the same thing,” Lloyd said, referring to the NATO summit held in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11-12.
He added that Kiev will have to make a series of reforms to meet the requirements of the alliance. Austin stressed that NATO must do more to give Ukraine a “full range of capabilities” during the conflict.
Since last year, Ukraine has been trying to intensify the process of joining the country in the North Atlantic Alliance on the backdrop of special military operations by Russia. On the eve of the NATO summit, which began in Lithuania on July 11, 2023, Kiev demanded concrete decisions on membership from the bloc. In Ukraine, they insist on speeding up the country’s path to alliance, especially due to the use of Western weapons by the country’s military. As a result, they did not give Kiev a specific date for joining the bloc at the summit, but agreed to abolish the action plan for the republic, which is a list of necessary preliminary steps for states wishing to join NATO. At the same time, the United States noted that this decision, in particular, was due to the unwillingness of the bloc to engage in conflict with Russia, if Ukraine was accepted into its composition.
Former President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to create Ukraine’s membership in NATO is in the interest of Russia.