Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and former Commander-in-Chief has stated that the country will “never” join NATO, and criticized the alliance’s military capabilities and doctrine.
| PULSE POINTS |
❓ WHAT HAPPENED: Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Valery Zaluzhnyi, has reportedly told a meeting of fellow Ukrainian ambassadors that Ukraine will “never” join NATO, suggesting the country was strung along with “fairy tales” of imminent membership for over a decade during his prior military career. 💬 KEY QUOTE: “I know NATO really well. For about 12 years, I personally worked on making sure we met NATO standards, and every year I heard fairy tales about how we would join NATO any day now. Unfortunately, we will never actually join.” – Valery Zaluzhnyi 🎯 IMPACT: Zaluzhnyi’s statement will carry particular weight in Ukraine, given his previous status as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He was controversially replaced by President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2024, officially due to differences over the conduct of the war with Russia, although there was widespread speculation that Zelensky feared Zaluzhnyi had become more popular than he was and posed a threat to his leadership. 📰 DETAIL: Zaluzhnyi was critical of NATO, arguing that Ukrainian membership was unlikely largely because “it is impossible to join an organization that is guided by World War II doctrines in light of the current capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces”. He took a dim view of NATO’s capabilities overall, predicting, “Most likely, NATO will remain in its current form and will spend another 12 years, just as Ukraine did, transitioning to the standards required to reach even half of the Russian Federation’s level.” He conceded that Ukraine “needs technologies that NATO countries currently have,” however, particularly in the realms of aerospace and missile defense. |
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