US Ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith, stated on Tuesday that she does not expect Ukraine to be invited to the next North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit, scheduled for July 9-11 in Washington. This comment was made during a press briefing ahead of an Alliance defense ministers meeting in Brussels.
Smith noted that the July summit in Washington should indicate that the Alliance is continuing to grow closer to Ukraine and is taking “concrete measures” to support the country’s potential future membership. Currently, Ukraine is at war with Russia.
At the previous NATO summit in Vilnius, the member countries reaffirmed Ukraine’s intended future membership, but did not set a specific timeline. This led to criticism from Volodymyr Zelensky, who viewed the indecisiveness as a sign of weakness.
Smith highlighted that since the Vilnius summit, significant efforts have been made to implement measures to assist Ukraine in making the necessary reforms for integration into the Atlantic Alliance.
However, all NATO member countries agree that Ukraine’s membership in the Alliance is not feasible while the country is still at war. This is due to the fact that such a move would essentially be equivalent to a conflict with Russia, given that Article 5 of the Alliance states that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all.
