Zelensky responds to Russian annexations with a request to join NATO on the fast track

The President of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelenski, has demanded this Friday that his country become part of NATO by the urgent route. He has done it with the still warm corpses of 25 civilians killed in a bombing of the city of Zaporizhia and with the growing threat of Moscow announcing the annexation of four regions of Ukraine. The Ukrainian president has also indicated that, at this point in the war, they do not intend to resume any type of negotiations with the Kremlin while President Vladimir Putin continues to lead the country.

“We took a decisive step by signing Ukraine’s candidacy for fast-track NATO membership,” he said in a video posted on his social media. It is, as Zelensky says, a “decisive” step taken by his country because he considers that he is ready to join the Atlantic Alliance, one of the aspirations that led Putin to undertake the invasion of his neighbor on February 24.

After the meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, the Ukrainian president pointed out that the latest events represent an insurmountable barrier to a rapprochement with Moscow. “It is obvious that this is impossible with this Russian president. He doesn’t know what dignity and honesty are. Therefore, we are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but already with another president,” Zelensky said.

The exchange of prisoners of war agreed last week between the two countries, from which 215 benefited from kyiv and 56 from Moscow, has been nothing more than a mirage in a war to which no one dares to set a date final. And winter is coming, when, in addition to the global energy crisis, the extreme weather in Ukraine will further complicate the fighting on the different front lines.

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