Kremlin comments on Ukraine’s bid to join NATO
Russia views Ukraine’s potential full membership in NATO as unacceptable because it would pose a security threat, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Peskov was asked to comment on a statement by the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry that “the only real guarantee of security for Ukraine...” is the country’s “full membership in NATO,” and that Kiev “would not accept any alternatives, surrogates or substitutes” for this outcome.
The ministry alluded to what it called “the bitter experience” of the Budapest Memorandum, a landmark 1994 agreement under which Ukraine promised to relinquish its nuclear arsenal inherited from the Soviet Union in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the US, and UK. Kiev has repeatedly accused Moscow of violating the deal after Crimea voted to join Russia following the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev.
Meanwhile, Russia has argued that the deal was fundamentally undermined by NATO’s expansion towards its borders.
However, Peskov stressed that the ministry’s statement “stands in stark contrast to our conception of the indivisibility of security,” adding that this implies that the security framework of one country should not be strengthened at the expense of the security of others.
“Therefore, such a potential move is, of course, unacceptable, because it is a threat to us. This also does not eliminate the root cause… that forced us to launch the special military operation,” he added.
Ukraine identified NATO membership as a strategic goal in 2019. This has been a major concern for Russia, which has for years sounded the alarm about the bloc’s creeping expansion towards its borders. Kiev formally applied to join NATO in September 2022 after four of its former regions voted to join Russia. However, Western officials have said that Ukraine cannot hope to join the bloc until the current conflict is over, for fear of being drawn into a direct clash with Moscow.
On Sunday, Zelensky also signaled that Kiev does not want an invitation to join NATO if it excludes Russian territories that belonged to Ukraine before 2014, as this would de-facto mean recognizing Moscow’s gains.
