Nato pledged to focus on boosting military aid to Ukraine rather than discussing its bid to join the alliance or any possible negotiations with Russia, as Kyiv said it would not accept any other security guarantees as alternatives to full membership of the bloc.
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte also warned on Tuesday that global security issues were “getting connected” due to support from China, Iran and North Korea for Russian president Vladimir Putin’s near three-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“Ukraine is entering another crucial winter. And Russia’s aggression shows no sign of abating. Just the opposite, Putin is ramping up his rhetoric and reckless actions. He is using Ukraine as a testing ground for experimental missiles and is deploying North Korean soldiers in this illegal war,” Mr Rutte said as Nato foreign ministers gathered in Brussels for two days of talks.
“Putin is not interested in peace. He is pressing on, trying to take more territory. Because he thinks he can break Ukraine’s resolve. And ours. But he is wrong.”
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged Nato to invite his country to join immediately, even if its mutual-defence clause were only to cover Kyiv-controlled territory for now.
However, Mr Rutte repeatedly batted aside questions about Ukraine’s membership hopes and the possibility of negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, which incoming US president Donald Trump is expected to advocate when he returns to the White House in January.
“I would argue, let’s not have all these discussions step by step on what a peace process might look like. Make sure that Ukraine has what it needs to get to a position of strength when those peace talks start,” Mr Rutte said
“And that is what we will very much focus on the next two days, how to get more military aid into Ukraine, more missile defence into Ukraine, better co-ordination of everything we are doing,’ he added.
Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said his country needed another 20 air defence systems to protect its power grid, and other weaponry to stop Russia “trying to occupy as much territory as possible to strengthen their future negotiating position”.
Thirty years after Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum and gave up the third-biggest nuclear arsenal in the world in exchange for security assurances from the United States, Britain and Russia – which proved to be worthless – Kyiv said only Nato membership would safeguard its future protection from Kremlin aggression.
“Not providing Ukraine with real, effective security guarantees in the 1990s was a strategic mistake that Moscow exploited. This mistake must be corrected,” Kyiv’s foreign ministry said. “With the bitter experience of the Budapest Memorandum behind us, we will not accept any alternatives, surrogates or substitutes for Ukraine’s full membership in Nato.”
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