The key opponents of Ukraine's invitation to NATO are the United States and Germany. The allies urge Kyiv not to spoil the "atmosphere" at the Washington summit. This was stated by Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Olha Stefanishyna during the 16th annual Kyiv Security Forum, an UNN correspondent reports.
"We have not yet found the person among the allies, among all the allied countries at the Headquarters, with whom we could talk about this in a real way. So now the whole dialog with the allies and the Headquarters is reduced to: "Please behave calmly at the Washington summit because we don't know what Trump's tweet will be after the leaders meet." That's it in a nutshell," Stefanishyna said.
She noted that Ukraine is not talking about membership in NATO right now.
"Even before the Vilnius summit, we proposed an invitation format as a legally binding format that would really guarantee Ukraine's membership in NATO. The most surprising thing for me is the position of the allies, because obviously the allies do not think that NATO has or can offer Ukraine mechanisms that will allow it to defend itself or politically support it. I think that the allies themselves do not believe in NATO right now," Stefanishyna said.
Stefanyshyna also explained that Ukraine and NATO members have different perceptions of leadership summits.
"Because the most important decisions are not prepared by allies for summits. A summit is networking, so to speak, so we and are urged not to spoil the atmosphere, so this decision can be made at any time, we don't need to wait for a meeting at the level of leaders, but of course we don't have a counterpart today with whom to conduct even this dialogue," Stefanishyna said.
However, she noted that this does not mean that there is no support.
"At the time of the Vilnius summit, 29 NATO member states supported Ukraine's invitation to join NATO. And 9 of them, the entire eastern flank, blocked all other decisions, and nothing could break them, no threats. But there are key opponents of this decision - the United States and Germany. I think that now it is the United States, which actually does not even allow this dialog to develop, and this is very sad," Stefanishyna said.
When asked how the dialog with the United States was developing, Stefanishyna replied: "No way. They are also preparing for the Washington summit, and we are preparing, but somehow we are not working together.