NATO secretary-general says Ukraine will join alliance ‘in the future’

Ukraine will be a member of NATO “in the future,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said from the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.

He declined to give more information about when Ukraine would join the military alliance, saying, “The question now is about the timeline.”

Rutte said he would speak to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy later on Thursday to update him on the “considerable progress” following a high-level decision in July.

At the time, the alliance’s 32 members declared Ukraine was on an “irreversible” path to membership at a summit in Washington, however, have so far declined to pin down a specific date.

The Ukrainian leader is currently in Brussels promoting his so-called “victory plan” to European leaders.

The plan contains five key points that Zelenskyy has said are necessary for Ukraine to begin the process of negotiating peace — the first point being Ukraine’s membership into NATO as the country continues to fend off Russian forces.

Zelenskyy said granting Ukraine membership to NATO would be a “testament of (allies’) determination” to support Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Western allies have however previously been cautious about allowing Ukraine into the alliance while fighting continues. The war-torn country’s membership could trigger NATO’s collective security guarantee and thus drag supporting countries into a war with Russia.

‘In this for the long haul’

Elsewhere, Rutte reiterated NATO’s commitment to Ukraine’s security saying Kyiv could rest “absolutely assured” that the alliance was committed to its victory.

“We are in this, if necessary, for the long haul,” he added.

The NATO chief stopped short of outright promoting Zelenskyy’s “victory plan”, saying the plan, “has many aspects and many political and military issues we really need to hammer out with the Ukrainians to understand what is behind it, to see what we can do, what we cannot do.”

For now, Rutte said, the focus must be on helping Ukraine to win back more territory and strengthen its hand for any future peace negotiations.

Posting on X, Zelenskyy said that an “immediate” invitation for Ukraine to join NATO would be “decisive,” and that Russia has capitalised on Ukraine’s lack of membership.

“An invitation now with membership later will have no political cost,” Zelenskyy added.

Rutte was in the Belgian capital to chair a meeting of NATO defence ministers, attended by representatives from NATO’s partners in Asia and Oceania.

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Elsewhere, the secretary-general commended Australia for recently announcing it would dispatch US-made M1A1 tanks to Kyiv. “This is all good news,” he said.

Zelenskyy and Rutte will attend a joint press conference later on Thursday.