NATO should “beg” Ukraine to join after Russia war: Diplomat

• Kyiv’s ambassador to the U.K, Vadym Prystaiko, told Newsweek that Ukraine’s accession to NATO will happen “sooner or later.”
• The country has received extensive military, financial, and political support from alliance members since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
• Ukraine is now awash with NATO weapons and defended by an increasing number of NATO-trained troops, which Prystaiko said makes his country’s membership a net benefit to the alliance.

Ukrainian accession to NATO will happen “sooner or later,” one of the country’s leading diplomats has predicted, regardless of heated inter-alliance debates and Russian threats of military escalation if Kyiv achieves its long-held goal.

Ambassador Vadym Prystaiko—Kyiv’s envoy to the U.K., a former foreign minister, and previously the country’s representative at NATO—told Newsweek at the Ukrainian mission in London that NATO’s recent expansion means there is now no reason to deny his country membership of the bloc.

Prystaiko said Ukraine’s stunning success in nearly 14 months of full-scale combat against Russia means NATO should “beg” the country and its hardened military to join.

Ukraine’s NATO ambitions appear closer to fruition than ever amid the alliance’s unprecedented support for Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. And, since 2014 when Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula, NATO has been building ever-closer ties with Ukraine, training tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers to alliance standards.

Ukraine is now fighting the kind of war for which NATO has so long prepared. The country is flooded with NATO weaponry, with which Ukrainian troops are inflicting enormous losses on the Russian invaders. They are also suffering heavy losses, and President Volodymyr Zelensky‘s government continues to request more advanced equipment from its allies as it prepares a long-awaited counterattack.

Kyiv is slowly building a NATO-standard military without membership. While the force has proved its potency, Ukrainian leaders have been clear there is no alternative to NATO’s Article 5 collective defense clause. This, they say, is the only guarantee against future Russian aggression.

“We have to break through this circle of silence on the Ukrainian future as a nation which is secured by a collective system,” Prystaiko told Newsweek. “This is a purely political decision […] All the conditions—you can write long lists—they will be they will be ticked off one after another, sooner or later. Just make the decision.”

“Do any of you have you one million people at arms, battle-hardened veterans?” Prystaiko asked. “Your sole cause is fighting against Russia; you’re not even fighting with China.”

“If you want to have somebody who knows—and is not just ready, but knows—how to do it, ask Ukraine. Beg them to be part of your alliance.”

‘They Are Already Annoyed’

“So much has already changed,” Prystaiko said, recalling Ukraine’s long and failed attempts to even secure a Membership Action Plan (MAP) since at least 2008—a key step on the path to full membership that lays out the requirements an applicant must meet.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that Ukraine will eventually become a member of the transatlantic alliance, but he and national leaders including President Joe Biden have made clear that this is a long-term goal.

It seems near-impossible that all 31 alliance members—perhaps 32 if Sweden does soon manage to join—would agree to admit Kyiv while active fighting with Russian forces continues.

Still, the broader narrative appears to be shifting in Ukraine’s favor. “We’re talking now about European Union and NATO membership much easier than we did in peacetime,” Prystaiko said.

“What are the conditions? We have to be democratic; OK, we’ve got that. We have to fix many things; we’ll do it. Corruption? That’s annoying to us as well, we’re working on it, and by the way there are a couple of members of NATO who can teach us all about corruption.”

“What else? Military spending at the level of 2 percent of GDP [gross domestic product]; talk to us. Ability to withstand the pressure of the arch enemy; it’s there. Responsibilities all over the world; got it.”

Some of the traditional reasons not to offer Ukraine membership—fear of provoking Russian aggression, concerns about the quality of Ukraine’s military as well as about systemic corruption—appear less relevant as Moscow’s war deepens and its ties with the West freeze over.

The expansion of the alliance to include Finland—and likely eventually Sweden—is of massive consequence for NATO, Russia and Ukraine. Kyiv sees an opportunity; one it has already tried to exploit by requesting an accelerated NATO accession process.

“Ukraine is already recognized as an aspirant to NATO,” Prystaiko said. “I know that my government is now saying that the Membership Action Plan is out of the question; we don’t need it anymore. The Swedish-Finnish example shows that. And NATO is preparing an individual program tailored for Ukrainian needs, so we don’t need a MAP.”

The NATO membership is not strictly formalized, with each nation’s path dictated by its unique characteristics. NATO’s 1995 “Study on Enlargement” said prospective candidates should have a “functioning democratic political system based on a market economy; fair treatment of minority populations; a commitment to resolve conflicts peacefully; an ability and willingness to make a military contribution to NATO operations; and a commitment to democratic civil-military relations and institutions.”

As Sweden and Finland both already comfortably met these criteria, their applications in 2022 did not require MAPs, which can cause significant delays to accession. The only real obstacles for Helsinki and Stockholm have been skeptics in the Hungarian and Turkish governments.

“They created a problem for themselves,” Prystaiko joked of NATO speeding up Finnish-Swedish accession. “The Ukrainians are jumping on this opportunity.”

Using old arguments to deny Ukraine membership now is “stupid,” the ambassador said.

“Because we’re close to the Russians? The Baltics [Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania] are very close to the Russians. Because it will annoy the Russians? How can you annoy them even more given they are already annoyed to the extreme and fighting with us physically?”

“When people tell me: ‘Russia was not happy because NATO was encroaching on their borders.’ So, [they could] go and fight with NATO. Why with us? If you’re not happy, fight them.”

“And then you fight somebody like Georgia,” Prystaiko added, referring to Moscow’s partial invasion of its small southern neighbor in 2008. “What did you prove? And to whom?”

“How can you threaten NATO? There’s nothing you can do to Ukrainians.”

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry by email to request comment.