Trump claims Ukraine's NATO bid was doomed well before Putin stepped in
Photo: Donald Trump (Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump says the understanding that Ukraine would not join NATO was formed long before Vladimir Putin began talking about it, according to Politico.
"Uh, it was always, uh ... I ... I ... long before Putin, uh, it was an understanding that Ukraine would not be going into NATO. This was long before Putin, in all fairness. And now they pushed," Trump says.
The US President also adds that when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy first came and met with Putin, he said: "I want two things. I want Crimea back and we’re gonna be a member of NATO."
According to Trump, "he didn’t say it in a very nice way either."
Ukraine's accession to NATO
Ukraine expected to receive an official invitation to NATO at the summit in Washington in July 2024, but this did not happen.
Kyiv continues to insist on a clear accession plan, but the Alliance has emphasized that membership can only be discussed after the end of the war.
At the same time, in early March, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni proposed extending NATO's Article 5 on collective security to Ukraine. And she proposed this without the country's membership in the Alliance.
Talks about Ukraine's accession to NATO began with renewed vigor after the US proposed its peace plan to resolve the war in Ukraine.
At the same time, it recently became known that Ukraine may be denied the path to NATO membership following a series of agreements between Alliance member states and Russia. One of the most problematic aspects of the initial US peace proposal was the provision that Ukraine must officially renounce its aspirations to join NATO.
