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  4.  » Biden warns he is ‘not prepared to support the NATO-isation of Ukraine’ in major blow to Zelensky
  • Biden ruled out Ukraine joining Nato following ceasefire with Russia
  • Says Ukraine would have to rely on West to fend off second Russian offensive

Sabrina Penty – Daily Mail June 5, 2024

Joe Biden has opposed Ukraine’s Nato membership in the event of a peace deal with Russia, which has come as a major blow to Volodymyr Zelensky.

This comes after it was reported last month that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was ready to ‘freeze the war’ in Ukraine if a negotiated ceasefire that recognises the current battlefield lines can be agreed.

However, ahead of Nato’s annual summit, which is set to take place on July 9, the US president said that peace ‘doesn’t mean Nato,’ as the alliance’s top diplomats met in Prague.

‘It means we have a relationship with them like we do with other countries, where we supply weapons so they can defend themselves in the future,’ he added.

President of Ukraine Zelensky had sought for Ukraine to enter Nato  in the event of a ceasefire, arguing that Putin is likely to stage another invasion.

Biden, however, declared that he was ‘not prepared for the Nato-isation of Ukraine,’ insisting that the West would have to come to Zelensky’s defence in order to fend off another Russian offensive, as stated under Article 5 of the Nato treaty.

He added that he had seen ‘significant corruption’  in Ukraine after a visit as vice president.

The US president still stressed the importance of the West’s role in preventing Kyiv falling to Russia, however, and warned that Poland and other territories could also ‘go down’.

The idea of war-torn Ukraine joining Nato has been entertained ever since Russia invaded back in February 2022. 

While the US secretary of state Anthony Blinken last week said that Nato members would ‘put in place the bridge to bring Ukraine closer and ultimately into Nato,’ Biden’s stance seems to interfere with any hope for Ukraine’s membership.

According to Reuters, Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has proposed a commitment to maintain at least 40 billion euros in annual support for Ukraine.

Last week, Nato foreign ministers met in Prague to discuss efforts to bring about a support package for Ukraine ahead of Nato’s summit in Washington next month.

The Kremlin, however, accused Nato of ‘provoking’ Kyiv into prolonging the conflict in Ukraine, whose officials have been appealing for permission from allies to target Russia with Western-supplied weapons.

‘Nato member states, the United States, and capitals in Europe in recent days and weeks have been entering a new round of escalations in tensions and they are doing it deliberately,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

‘They are provoking Ukraine in every possible way into continuing this senseless war,’ Peskov told reporters during a daily briefing.

Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with Vladimir Putin claiming that his nation was ‘fighting fiercely for its future, repelling the aggression of neo-Nazis and their masters’, referring to Ukraine and the West.

Since then, his brutal invasion – the bloodiest conflict on European soil in decades – has largely become a war of attrition.

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