Volodymyr Zelensky has presented to his EU and NATO allies the ‘victory plan’ that he presented this Wednesday before his country’s Parliament. But the response I received in Brussels has been colder than on other occasions. The secretary general of the Atlantic alliance, Mark Rutte, has cooled the invitation for Ukraine to join the club and that it appears as a priority of the plan presented by the president of that country, who has assured that, beyond support on the field of battle, these types of measures would be a boost for a people that is approaching the third year of war.
“Russia has taken advantage of the geopolitical uncertainty caused by Ukraine’s non-membership in NATO. Now, an immediate invitation to Ukraine to join NATO would be decisive,” Zelensky told EU leaders. “Of course, membership would come later,” the Ukrainian president clarified, aware that the path to the Atlantic alliance is complicated by the suspicions that enlargement towards the east entails at this time, but above all the impossibility of incorporating a country at war.
NATO itself has accepted the proposal coldly. “The question is when, I cannot answer it now,” Rutte admitted upon his arrival at the organization’s headquarters in Brussels before participating in a meeting with the defense ministers. What the new head of the alliance has assured is that “Ukraine’s path to NATO is irreversible.”
Thus, he explained that work is being done on “ways” for “Ukraine to one day be a member of NATO”, such as the delivery of bilateral aid or progress in interoperability.
“The first step towards world war”
In a press conference in which he was not accompanied by EU leaders Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen, as has happened on other occasions, Zelensky warned that there are 10,000 North Korean soldiers prepared to join Vladimir’s troops. Putin. “It is the first step towards world war,” the Ukrainian president said about the involvement of a second country in the attack, in addition to citing the help that Russia receives with drones from Iran.
As part of his victory plan, Zelensky has offered the Ukrainian army to replace troops that countries like the United States have in places in Europe: “After this war, we will have hundreds of thousands of soldiers with experience in modern combat. Equipped. And we propose to support their force with ours by replacing some of the American contingents with our soldiers, especially in Europe or wherever we agree, allowing the United States to do more in its priority regions, in the Indo-Pacific or wherever. “But for this we need to win, of course,” he told EU leaders.
He has also asked them to approve “as quickly as possible” the loan of up to 35 billion euros to which they have committed within the framework of the G7, but which Hungary vetoes because it opposes the extension of the freeze on Russian assets, which would serve to finance the loan.
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