During a Nov. 25 press conference previewing next week’s NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Bucharest, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg repeated the mantra that NATO’s door is open, when asked about Ukraine’s prospective membership in the alliance. “Demonstrating that NATO’s door is open and demonstrating that Russia doesn’t have a veto on NATO enlargement, so we have demonstrated that NATO’s door is open and that it is for NATO allies and aspirant countries to decide on membership,” he said. “This is also the message to Ukraine.”
But rather than moving on Ukraine’s membership, “The most urgent, and an immediate task … the focus now is, of course, to provide support to Ukraine. Make sure that our Allies are providing military support and NATO’s providing support to ensure that President Putin doesn’t win in Ukraine.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, responded to Stoltenberg’s “open door”: “NATO is an accomplice to the Kiev regime’s crimes.”
During her regular briefing on Nov. 24, Zakharova noted that there are signs that some in the European Union are recognizing the reality of the implications of bringing Ukraine into NATO. “Speaking before the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on Nov. 21 of this year, Volodymyr Zelenskyy again asked it to support Ukraine’s application for membership in the bloc,” she pointed out. “Kiev is convinced that in conditions of ‘war with Russia’ NATO and the EU are obliged to accept them. Can you imagine the consequences? The EU can. This is the only sign that some EU political leaders have common sense. They can at least calculate the risks.”
