Zelensky wished to get a “clear perspective” from NATO in 2022 – RBK

Until now, this has not happened, although the bloc has confirmed its readiness to admit these countries into its ranks in the summer of 2021 without specifying the time frame for when this will happen.

Zelenskiy has repeatedly said that if NATO really wants to see Ukraine among its members, then it must solve this problem immediately. Ukraine could have received at least a NATO Membership Action Plan long ago. He discussed this issue in negotiations with Joe Biden, and, according to Zelensky, the US President supports Ukraine in this matter.

Biden himself, answering a question from journalists about the prospects of joining, said that Ukraine needs to solve the problem of corruption and meet other criteria in order to get a plan for joining NATO.

Moscow opposes Ukraine’s joining NATO. In early December, Vladimir Putin said that Russia needed legal guarantees to rule out the possibility of NATO’s eastward expansion and the deployment of offensive strike weapons by the alliance in neighboring states. The President called this a top priority for Russian diplomacy.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO adheres to an open door policy not only in words, but also in deeds, since it has already accepted North Macedonia and Montenegro into the alliance.

Speaking about Ukraine, he stressed that it is a sovereign country, which itself must determine its future, therefore, the decision on its membership in the alliance will be made by the countries that are members of it, and Kiev itself.

In mid-December, Moscow sent a draft security treaty to Washington, in which it proposed NATO to abandon further expansion of the alliance, including by including Ukraine and Georgia in it. Also, NATO countries, in the event of an agreement, should abandon any military activity on the territory of Ukraine, as well as “other states of Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia”, follows from the draft document, which RBC managed to get acquainted with.