Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is letting his frustration and impatience over the question of entering the NATO military alliance be known. “Our future is in the European Union. Ukraine is also ready to be part of NATO. We are waiting for NATO to be ready to accept Ukraine,” he said Thursday to journalists just ahead of a summit of the European Political Community in Chisinau, Moldova.
At the summit, he demanded that Ukraine receive security guarantees “now” and emphasized the best way to ensure this is acceptance into NATO. But the idea of ‘security guarantees’ has also long been under discussion, with French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday having explained that the country could be given “something between the security provided to Israel and full-fledged membership.”
Zelensky continued in his address to the Moldova summit, “In Vilnius, a clear invitation to Ukraine is needed” – which is a reference to NATO’s annual summit in Lithuania, set for July.
“Doubts must vanish. Positive decisions for Ukraine will be positive for everyone,” Zelensky stressed. “There should be no hot war or frozen conflict on our continent,” he added, telling European leaders: “When there are no security guarantees, there are only war guarantees.”