“We are going to liberate the whole country”: the firm response of Zelensky who formalized Ukraine's application for NATO membership
Photo: Spencer Platt / Getty Images
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, announced this Friday that his country is formally applying to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), using an accelerated accession mechanism.
The petition was made on the same day that Vladimir Putin’s government announced the annexation to the Russian Federation of four regions of Ukraine that Russian troops had conquered since the beginning of the war in February this year.
“We are taking our decisive step by signing Ukraine’s application for accelerated entry in NATO”, Zelensky said in a statement in which he stressed that his country had already advanced on its path towards integration into that organization by having demonstrated compatibility with the standards of the Atlantic alliance.
“Are real [the standards] for Ukraine, real on the battlefield and in all aspects of our interaction. We trust each other, we protect each other. This is an alliance, de facto. Today, Ukraine is applying to do so de jure “, he pointed out.
The Ukrainian president also warned Moscow that “he is going to liberate all the territories of Ukraine.”
“We are confident, although it will not be easy, that we will achieve it. We have already made significant progress in the east and we are going to follow that path, “said Zelensky in a message sent through social networks.
The accelerated entry mechanism is a procedure that allows a country to join NATO without the need to previously have a membership action plan (MAP), which is a program through which that organization provides individualized support and advice to each country to guide them in the process of adapting to the alliance’s standards.
Although this is the regular procedure to enter , Zelensky pointed out that recently Finland and Sweden used an accelerated entry mechanism and that it was fair that Ukraine could do the same.
Finland and Sweden managed to join NATO just a few months after both countries, prompted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, will take the decision to request their joining the alliance.
From resignation to petition
Although the Joining NATO has been an aspiration of Ukraine for several years and has been inscribed in the country’s Constitution since 2022, Putin has fiercely opposed this possibility, pointing out that it represents an existential threat to Russia.