Admitting Ukraine into NATO before the end of the year could be a major part of Joe Biden’s legacy as president, Kiev’s envoy to the bloc, Natalia Galibarenko, has said.
Vladimir Zelensky has pitched immediate membership in the US-led bloc as part of his ‘victory plan’, which he presented on Wednesday. Galibarenko explained the reasoning behind this in an interview with Reuters in Brussels, recorded the day before.
“Our idea is that giving Ukraine [an] invitation at this moment is a political signal,” she told the agency. “We sincerely believe that it can be part of the legacy of current American administration.”
Russia has demanded Ukraine’s military neutrality, and the specifically the renunciation of its NATO aspirations, as one of the preconditions for the current conflict to end.
According to Galibarenko, fast-tracking Kiev into the bloc would be “like a final, final vedict,” making Moscow unable to press the issue further. Even an invitation by itself, without any practical actions towards membership, would “send a powerful public message,” she argued.
While NATO has declared that Ukraine is on an “irreversible” path to join eventually, it has qualified this by saying it will happen “when allies agree and conditions are met.” The US-led bloc has also told Kiev that it cannot join while at war and declined to give a timeline for accession.
Two NATO members, Slovakia and Hungary, have already said they would vote against admitting Ukraine. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has argued that this would mean an open war with Russia, which he is opposed to.
The US has been one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine, approving almost $180 million in military and financial aid to Kiev since 2022. According to Reuters, Galibarenko’s push suggests there is “major uncertainty” in Kiev about what might happen after the American presidential election on November 5.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats’ candidate for the White House, has “signaled” continued support for Ukraine but has not spelled out any policies. Former president and Republican candidate Donald Trump has promised to end the conflict within a day, presumably by discontinuing the US aid that is sustaining Ukraine.
Speculation about Biden fast-tracking Ukraine’s NATO bid first appeared earlier this month in Financial Times, but has not been substantiated.
Then Vice President Biden was entrusted with Washington’s Ukraine policy during President Barack Obama’s second term, and played a key role in the 2014 coup in Kiev. His presidency’s sole foreign policy achievement so far has been to end the US war in Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. The pullout from Kabul in August 2021 ended in a virtual stampede for the exits, however, as the US-backed Afghan government imploded before the advancing Taliban.