Ukraine has demanded a concrete timeline for NATO membership, pushing members to commit to specific steps for making that happen. But many NATO countries are cautious about risking direct war with Russia, and they are searching for a way to balance Ukraine’s hopes with pragmatic security calculations.
Zelensky’s angry intervention — which came before the final agreement on Tuesday but after the language had already started circulating — suggested the alliance had not yet found a way to satisfy both sides. NATO diplomats had hoped to issue a unified declaration on Ukraine’s membership prospects on Tuesday as a triumphal moment ahead of Zelensky’s visit to the summit.
The sharp statement was the latest gamble by the Ukrainian president, who has not hesitated to criticize his backers when he senses a moment to seize more support for Ukraine. NATO diplomats, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about the tense talks, said they suspected he was using the tweet as a negotiation tactic.
“Now, on the way to Vilnius, we received signals that certain wording is being discussed without Ukraine,” Zelensky wrote on Twitter. “And I would like to emphasize that this wording is about the invitation to become NATO member, not about Ukraine’s membership. It’s unprecedented and absurd when time frame is not set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership.”
He claimed that NATO leaders were not serious about inviting Ukraine to join the alliance and complained that their approach indicated they instead wanted to keep its membership as a bargaining chip for eventual negotiations with Russia.
“Uncertainty is weakness,” he wrote, as he prepared to join the allies for meetings in Vilnius. “And I will openly discuss this at the summit.”
The blunt, 170-word missive surprised policymakers at the summit, where Biden had hoped to lead a show of unity against Russia and highlight his ability to rally global partners — a key component of his reelection pitch.
While Zelensky did not mention Biden in his tweet, the Ukrainian leader has called the U.S. president NATO’s chief “decision-maker” and has been directing his appeals for membership to the White House. For his part, Biden has been more hesitant than many other NATO members about Ukraine’s bid, saying that in addition to resolving the ongoing war with Russia, Kyiv needed to undergo additional overhauls to become eligible.
Ukrainian officials have said they realize they will not immediately be invited to join the alliance at this summit but hoped for a clear pathway or timeline to be established in writing that would give them confidence that they would soon be invited.
Stoltenberg sought to smooth things over.
“There has never been a stronger message from NATO at any time, both when it comes to political messages on the path forward for membership and the concrete support from NATO allies with their support,” he said.
Zelensky’s words stood in stark contrast to the image of Western harmony Biden and his aides had been projecting Tuesday, crediting the president with helping to break an impasse that had stalled Sweden’s accession into NATO for a year. The breakthrough with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom Biden planned to meet Tuesday, helped pave the path for Stockholm’s eventual inclusion as the bloc’s 32nd member state.
“When the NATO Summit gets underway, our alliance will not only be bigger and stronger than ever, it will be more united, more purposeful and more energized than at any point in modern memory,” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Tuesday morning at the outset of the summit, noting Biden’s personal involvement in helping persuade Turkey to end its blockade on Sweden.
Biden has stressed that the impasse over Sweden was not tied to Erdogan’s desire to buy F-16 fighter jets from the United States, which some in the Senate have blocked. But Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said after the agreement was reached that she believed the sale would move forward “when we see ratification.”
Later Tuesday, about 10 minutes after Zelensky’s tweet posted, Biden and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg shook hands and announced they had agreed on language about Ukraine’s membership bid.
Some NATO policymakers said that Zelensky was taking advantage of the chance to maximize pressure on the discussion to push far as possible on membership promises before the language was set to be published.
“The tweet puts pressure on the alliance,” said a senior NATO defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. And it helps send a message to Zelensky’s domestic audience “to say I am fighting to the end.”
Responding to Zelensky’s tweet, a senior E.U. official said Ukrainian officials were trying to “tease out a bit more from allies,” particularly on what specific conditions Ukraine would need to meet to move forward.
“To their taste,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, the draft language is “a bit open-ended.”
For weeks now, NATO country diplomats have been trying to find a way to signal support for Ukraine without actually offering them membership — a delicate and fraught balancing act.
Ukraine and some European allies have pushed hard for NATO to go beyond its 2008 promise that the country will join the alliance at an unspecified future date, but the United States, Germany and others remain wary of setting out a timeline.
Even as Zelensky has ramped up his calls for membership, Biden has been saying the country must complete additional overhauls to its democratic system before becoming eligible.
“I don’t think it’s ready for membership in NATO,” Biden said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”
Sullivan said the summit would mark the progress that Ukraine has made toward achieving the c necessary for NATO membership. Other leaders also indicated that the summit would reinforce the idea that Ukraine’s accession to the bloc was a matter of when, not if.
Zelensky’s harsh commentary means his meeting with Biden will be one of the summit’s most high-profile engagements. It will come just hours before the president is set to deliver a “major” address about his global vision and leadership, aides said.
Sullivan said the summit would mark the progress that Ukraine has made toward achieving the changes necessary for NATO membership. Other leaders also indicated that the summit would reinforce the idea that Ukraine’s accession to the bloc was a matter of when, not if.
In his remarks Tuesday, Stoltenberg said Ukraine should be allowed to circumvent the alliance’s Membership Action Plan (MAP) process in his opening address to Tuesday’s NATO summit. Stoltenberg praised Ukraine for having “come a long way” since 2008, when NATO made a vague commitment that Kyiv would one day join.
As the talks have unfolded, the more hawkish members of the alliance — the Baltic states, Poland, and others in Central and Eastern Europe with unpleasant memories of communism — had pushed for clear language to demonstrate that Ukraine’s path toward NATO membership is getting shorter.
The conversations have been sharp, diplomats said, with many of the hawks getting frustrated with the United States and Germany, the two most vocally cautious members of the alliance on that subject.
Ukrainians had been especially vocal about including the word “invitation” in the summit declaration, diplomats said. And so when they won that concession by Tuesday morning, Ukraine’s closest NATO allies were expressing relief and satisfaction.
“We are quite happy,” one senior NATO diplomat said before the Zelensky tweet. “Hopefully it will stay in the text.”
Some diplomats argue that it is not realistic to grant Ukraine NATO membership while it is engaged in a war, since that would instantly involve the alliance in military hostilities. But others argue that waiting until the war ends would only give Russian President Vladimir Putin an incentive to prolong it.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) dismissed that argument. “Putin cannot continue to invest in a war he’s losing in the long-term,” Tillis said. “The message out of this summit, and every summit as long as he’s in Ukraine, is that we’re here, we’re here en masse, and we’re going to continue to support Ukraine.”
White House aides have said the president has a strong story to tell about unifying allies in response to Russia’s aggression and have taken umbrage over criticism that any sense of disharmony signaled a broader disintegration of the West’s solidarity with Kyiv.
“A lot of the coverage going into the summit — rumors over the death of NATO’s unity — were greatly exaggerated,” Sullivan said Tuesday morning. “Every few months, the question is called: Can the West hang together, can NATO hang together, can transatlantic hang together? Every time allies gather, that question gets re-upped, and every time allies come together is forcefully and vehemently: Yes, we can.”
But Zelensky’s language was particularly stark, raising the question of whether the alliance could come up with a final agreement that will satisfy Kyiv.
“A window of opportunity is being left to bargain Ukraine’s membership in NATO in negotiations with Russia. And for Russia, this means motivation to continue its terror,” he wrote.
