Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s so-called “victory plan” seems to be getting very little traction in NATO. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte implied yesterday that Zelenskyy’s plan, particularly his demand for an invitation to join the alliance, was not a major topic of discussion during the Oct. 17-18 NATO defense ministers’ meeting. “I must say that the main focus of the discussion was to get massive military aid into Ukraine from, of course, the armed forces here in the West, so Allies providing that military aid to Ukraine,” said Rutte during a press conference yesterday. “Obviously, we all know that Ukraine will become a member of NATO, so the question is exactly when and when the invitation will take place, but that was not the main issue of the debate last night,” he added, referring to an Oct. 17 dinner.
Later, he said that all of the military aid is to help Ukraine fight off Russia. “That doesn’t mean that yesterday we discussed line item by line item, the whole victory plan,” he said. “That was not a debate last night. We respectfully took note of it. We all agree, I believe—I didn’t take a poll in the room—that it is an important signal that the Ukrainian government and the President have aligned themselves on this victory plan. This will no doubt be part of the ongoing discussions with Ukraine. But the main issue last night was how to make sure that nobody in Moscow might think that we want to slow down or whatever, know that we want to ramp up industry production to replenish here and get more aid into Ukraine, that we want to support the Ukrainian defense production capacity...”
