Allies were divided over Ukraine’s prospects of joining the Atlantic Alliance
While the counter-offensive launched by Kiev appears to have stalled more than five hundred days into the conflict, Ukraine will take part in all discussions between the forty heads of state and government meeting in Vilnius on Tuesday 11 and Wednesday 12, for the annual Atlantic Alliance Summit.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to attend the summit on Wednesday to inaugurate the first “NATO-Ukraine Council”. However, this political signal is not yet a harbinger of the country’s entry into the Transatlantic Alliance, quite the opposite. The “unity” displayed in support of Ukraine is not enough to hide the deep divisions between the Western allies over their prospects for NATO membership.
Poland and the Baltic countries, even France, have multiplied the pressure since Emmanuel Macron’s May 31 speech in Bratislava, the hypothesis of a formal invitation to Ukraine to integrate into the alliance remains an unacceptable prospect for the United States and Germany, which is very concerned to avoid any form of escalation with Russia while the conflict rages on. ” I do not think so [l’Ukraine] Be ready,” US President Joe Biden said on CNN on Sunday.
In the absence of membership in the alliance, Kyiv’s main allies will try to offer him “security guarantees” in parallel with the summit in order to expand aid at the military level. Ukraine has been very aggressive in the discussions, trying to get substantive commitments from its various partners, for example taking inspiration from the strong American guarantees to Israel.