NATO Chief Says The Door Has Opened To Ukraine’s Accession

According to a report on September 30th, just a few hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced that the country was applying for fast-track NATO membership, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the door for Ukraine’s accession to NATO had been always opened.

“Every democracy in Europe has the right to apply for NATO membership, and NATO allies respect that right, and we have stated again and again that NATO’s door remains open. And we have demonstrated that over the last years.” Stoltenberg said at a NATO press conference on Friday, a few hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to annex four Ukrainian regions. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg briefs the media at NATO HQ on September 30. (Photo Source: nato.int)

Putin signed the “agreement on the accession to Russia” on Friday to annex the occupied Ukrainian territories of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. These territories have recently concluded referendums on whether to join the Russian Federation, although Western leaders generally condemn them as fraudulent and illegitimate.

Stoltenberg said it was the largest attempt to annex territory since World War II, and Russia’s annexation area accounted for about 15% of Ukraine’s territories.

Shortly after Putin signed the annexation agreement, Zelensky revealed that he was accelerating Ukraine’s bid to join NATO.

“We are de facto allies,” he said in a statement. “This has already been achieved. De facto, we have already completed our path to NATO. De facto, we have already proven interoperability with the alliance’s standards, they are real for Ukraine — real on the battlefield and in all aspects of our interaction.”