Ukraine won’t get a fast track to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization even though NATO allies have provided the country with significant resources since the conflict with Russia erupted, said President Joe Biden on Saturday.
At a campaign rally with union officials, Biden was asked by reporters if he would make it easier for Ukraine to join the military alliance. Russian President Vladimir Putin has long said that Kyiv joining NATO is a nonstarter and that it was one of the reasons for its 2022 invasion.
“No,” Biden said Saturday. “Because they’ve got to meet the same standards. So we’re not going to make it easy.”
Ukraine, a former Soviet territory that is also not a member of the European Union, has the “ability to coordinate military” affairs in the midst of the year-long conflict, he said. But the Eastern European country has to “meet all the standards” to fully join NATO.
Biden also raised issues of government corruption within Ukraine’s military and government, which has been flagged by NATO officials in the past.
“I think they’ve done everything relating to demonstrating the ability to coordinate militarily, but there’s a whole issue of: Is their system secure? Is it non-corrupt? Does it meet all the standards every other nation in NATO does?” Biden remarked. “I think they will. I think they can. But it’s not automatic.”
Biden’s comments come several days after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg asserted Kyiv has “moved closer” to NATO in the midst of fighting. He delivered those comments in Brussels after a scheduled NATO defense ministers meeting.
“We all agree that Ukraine has already moved closer to NATO over the past decade,” Stoltenberg stated. “We agree that NATO’s door is open—that Ukraine will become a member of the alliance and that this is a decision for allies and Ukraine to make. Russia does not have a veto.”
Putin’s Latest Remarks
But Putin, in public remarks last week, said there is a “serious danger” of NATO being drawn into the conflict if members of the alliance continue to give supplies to Ukraine.
“NATO, of course, is being drawn into the war in Ukraine, what are we talking here,” Putin said Friday during a forum in St. Petersburg. “The supplies of heavy military weaponry to Ukraine are ongoing, they are now looking into giving Ukraine the jets.”
In recent weeks, German Leopard 2 tanks, British Challenger 2 tanks, and U.S. Bradley and Stryker vehicles were sent to Ukraine’s forces. Putin said his forces had destroyed those vehicles and tanks, including the Leopards.
“And if they are based abroad, but used in fighting we’ll see how to hit them, and where we can hit those means that are used against us in fighting,” Putin said. “This is a serious danger of further drawing NATO into this military conflict,” he added.
During the speech, the Russian leader again suggested that Moscow’s alleged vast supply of nuclear weapons could guarantee its security. He noted that Russia has far more nuclear weapons than NATO states have.
The Arms Control Association says Russia possesses about 6,250 nuclear warheads as of January 2021, whereas the United States has 5,500. NATO states Britain and France have about 500 nuclear warheads combined.
“Nuclear weapons are created to guarantee our security in the broader sense and the existence of the Russian state,” Putin said, according to a CNN translation. “But first of all, there is no need and secondly the very fact of talking about it reduces the possibility of the threshold for using these weapons being reduced.”
He added: “Also, we have more weapons like this than the NATO countries. They know it and they keep driving towards negotiation on reduction.”
African Peace Mission
At talks in St Petersburg on Saturday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa presented Putin with a 10-point peace initiative from seven African countries and told him the time had come for Russia and Ukraine to start negotiations to end the war. Putin thanked Ramaphosa for his “noble mission,” while Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Putin had shown interest in the plan but it would be “difficult to realize.”
In Kyiv the previous day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had told the African delegation—the first since the start of the war to hold separate face-to-face talks with both leaders on their peace initiative—that allowing negotiations now would just “freeze the war” and the suffering of the Ukrainian people.
Ramaphosa sought to cast the trip to Ukraine and Russia in a positive light, writing on Twitter on Sunday that the “Africa Peace Initiative has been impactful and its ultimate success will be measured on the objective, which is stopping the war.” He said the Africans would keep talking to both Putin and Zelenskyy and would brief U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on their efforts so far.
Reuters contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
