The unusual rebuke reflects a growing shift in the country’s relationship with NATO, with Kyiv increasingly seen as a vital European security provider.
NATO’s reliance on the ”doctrines of World War II” and its slow adaptation to new forms of warfare make it unlikely Ukraine will ever join the alliance, said Kyiv’s Ambassador to the U.K. and former Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
”For 12 years, I must have personally been working to ensure that we mastered NATO standards, and every year I listened to tales that we were about to join NATO. Unfortunately, we will never join it,” Zaluzhnyi privately told Ukrainian ambassadors in Kyiv on Monday, according to Ukrainian media.
Although ”Ukraine needs technologies that are still available in NATO countries today,” like defenses against ballistic missiles, he said, ”it is impossible to join an organization that possesses the doctrines of World War II with the level of development that exists in the armed forces of Ukraine.” […]
Zaluzhnyi’s unusual rebuke underscores a growing change in the alliance’s relationship with Ukraine. The country has shifted from relying on European military support in the early years of the war to becoming one the continent’s most powerful and technologically advanced militaries — far ahead of Western forces in the mass production of drones, missiles and other key systems. […]
As a result, Zaluzhnyi said, Ukraine would instead opt to ”be tied to blocs and alliances that will probably be formed,” citing the Joint Expeditionary Force — a 10-nation U.K.-led grouping of mainly Nordic and Baltic countries established in 2014 and designed to complement NATO.
”Most likely, we will talk about a European military security bloc,” added Zaluzhnyi. Läs artikel