Ukraine asks NATO for membership invite next week, letter shows

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has urged his NATO counterparts to contented an invitation astatine a gathering successful Brussels adjacent week to Kyiv to articulation the Western subject alliance, according to the substance of a missive seen by Reuters connected Friday.

The missive reflects Ukraine's renewed propulsion to unafraid an invitation to articulation NATO, which is portion of a "victory plan" outlined past period by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to extremity the warfare triggered by Russia's 2022 invasion.

Ukraine says it accepts that it cannot articulation the confederation until the warfare is implicit but extending an invitation present would amusement Russian President Vladimir Putin that helium could not execute 1 of his main goals — preventing Kyiv from becoming a NATO member.

"The invitation should not beryllium seen arsenic an escalation," Sybiha wrote successful the letter.

"On the contrary, with a wide knowing that Ukraine's rank successful NATO is inevitable, Russia volition suffer 1 of its main arguments for continuing this unjustified war," helium wrote. "I impulse you to endorse the determination to invitation Ukraine to articulation the Alliance arsenic 1 of the outcomes of the NATO Foreign Ministerial Meeting connected 3-4 December 2024."

NATO diplomats accidental determination is nary statement among confederation members to invitation Ukraine astatine this stage. Any specified determination would necessitate the consent of each NATO's 32 subordinate countries.

NATO has declared that Ukraine volition articulation the confederation and that it is connected an "irreversible" way to membership. But it has not issued a ceremonial invitation oregon acceptable retired a timeline.

Olga Stefanishyna, Ukraine's lawman premier curate successful complaint of NATO affairs, said Kyiv understood that the statement for an invitation to articulation NATO "is not yet there" but the missive was meant to nonstop a beardown governmental signal.

"We person sent a connection to the allies that invitation is not disconnected of the table, careless of antithetic manipulations and speculations astir that," she told Reuters.

In his letter, Sybiha argued an invitation would beryllium the close effect "to Russia's changeless escalation of the warfare it has unleashed, the latest objection of which is the engagement of tens of thousands of North Korean troops and the usage of Ukraine arsenic a investigating crushed for caller weapons."

In caller days, however, diplomats person said they bash not spot immoderate changes of stance among NATO countries, peculiarly arsenic they await the Ukraine argumentation of the United States — the alliance's ascendant powerfulness — nether the incoming medication of President-elect Donald Trump.