NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg travelled to Ukraine on Thursday and held a press conference with President Volodymyr Zelensky in the capital Kyiv.
The visit is Stoltenberg’s first since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.
The NATO chief reaffirmed his personal support for Ukraine’s future NATO membership.
“I will speak clearly,” Stoltenberg said at the briefing, “Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family, Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.”
As Russia’s war against Ukraine continues with no foreseeable end in sight, Kyiv is continuing to push for a clear path to NATO membership.
“Right now, when the majority of people in NATO member countries, as well as the majority of Ukrainians support our country’s entry into the Alliance, it is time for appropriate decisions,” Zelensky said.
Stoltenberg said that “NATO’s position remains unchanged and that Ukraine will become a member of the alliance.”
“The first step toward any membership of Ukraine to NATO is to ensure that Ukraine prevails, and that is why the U.S. and its partners have provided unprecedented support for Ukraine,” he added.
In recent months, NATO member states have continued to make new commitments to support Ukraine with heavy equipment and military training at the meeting of the alliance’s defense ministers.
Without giving any details, Stoltenberg said that he expected that Ukraine’s partners would make “new announcements of concrete military support” to Ukraine at the next meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the Ramstein Air Base on April 21.
“Our allies are now providing more aircraft, tanks and armored vehicles, and NATO is providing Ukraine with emergency support, including medical equipment, mobile satellite systems and pontoon bridges,” Stoltenberg said. “All this changes the battlefield every day.”
The upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius in July, which Stoltenberg said on March 1 he had invited Zelensky to, was also a topic of discussion during the press conference on April 20.
According to Zelensky, he was “grateful” for the invitation, but it was important that Ukraine also “received a corresponding invitation.”
“There is no objective barrier that would prevent the adoption of political decisions on inviting Ukraine to the Alliance,” Zelensky said.
