The United States considered removing the word “invitation” from the final text of the NATO statement following the summit in Vilnius due to a sharp statement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. On Thursday, July 13, the newspaper reported The Washington Post with reference to sources.
We are talking about a statement by Zelensky on Twitter, in which he criticized the alliance and its position on the possible membership of Ukraine, calling the lack of specific deadlines “unprecedented and absurd.” According to the newspaper, because of this tweet, members of the US delegation were angry and wanted to make the document more vague, so that it would become “less favorable for Ukraine’s early entry into the alliance.”
“Some wanted to remove the mention of the “invitation” or find another place for this word,” the newspaper quotes the words of one of the NATO diplomats who took part in the negotiations.
However, according to the publication, the meeting participants came to the understanding that making changes to the document would slow down its publication. As a result, those who were most worried about the reaction of Ukraine came to the conclusion that it was better to leave the original version of the document.
Earlier, on July 12, political scientist Malek Dudakov said that the likelihood of a split between the collective West and Zelensky amid the latter’s critical statements about the alliance is quite small, but the Ukrainian leader has already been pointed out to his excessive harshness in his statements. For example, he was not invited to the main events of the summit.
On July 11, at the first meeting, members of the military-political bloc issued a communiqué in which the allies decided that they would invite Ukraine when they reached unanimity on this issue and the conditions were suitable. Thus, neither the schedule nor the date of Kyiv’s entry into the alliance is reflected in the summit document.
On September 30, 2022, Ukraine applied to join NATO on an accelerated basis. Then Volodymyr Zelensky said that in fact Ukraine is already in NATO and meets the standards of the alliance.
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