Worthy Christian News > World News > Ukraine Receives NATO Guarantees Angering Russia

Ukraine Receives NATO Guarantees Angering Russia

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

VILNIUS/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Ukraine received security guarantees from leading nations and assurances that Ukraine’s future lies in NATO, prompting an angry response from Russia which invaded the country last year.

Yet, in a setback for Kyiv, Ukraine didn’t get a precise timetable about when it could join the military alliance following one of NATO’s most significant summits in recent history.

“This was really a missed opportunity to show a united front to Moscow. They should have offered membership to Ukraine,” a senior U.S. security diplomat told Worthy News. “It is strange because Ukraine already received security guarantees from key NATO countries, including the United States and Britain.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was “absurd” for NATO leaders not to give even so much as a timetable. The conditions, he said, were “vague.”

And he also condemned the idea that Ukraine’s membership in NATO would somehow be a bargaining chip for post-war negotiations with Russia.

But tensions eventually eased after President Zelensky met NATO leaders face-to-face, with several saying that Ukraine would join NATO.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the country belonged in the alliance. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stressed they “met as equals” on Wednesday but would “do so as allies” in the future.

‘CULTURAL ACCEPTANCE’

British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace even said the summit showed there was now “a cultural acceptance” that Ukraine belonged in Nato. He claimed that there were no longer any countries asking “if” Ukraine should join, only “when.”

However, NATO ally Hungary made clear it won’t accept Ukraine into the alliance as long as perceived discriminatory legislation towards ethnic minorities, including Hungarians, remain in place.

U.S. President Joe Biden admitted that the alliance didn’t invite Ukraine to join yet during the summit as it works on “necessary reforms.” But he said, “We’re not waiting on that process to be finished” to boost the country’s security.

Biden also stressed earlier that Russia’s war in Ukraine needs to end before the alliance can consider adding Kyiv to its ranks.

Yet President Biden and leaders of the Group of Seven, the world’s leading economies, also unveiled a substantial show of military support for Ukraine Wednesday at the NATO gathering in Vilnius, Lithuania. They pledged to aid Ukraine in bolstering the war-torn country’s military capability.

That angered Moscow. The Russian Foreign Ministry claimed that the latest NATO summit showed the Western alliance was returning to “Cold War schemes.”

It warned the Kremlin was ready to respond to threats by using “all means” that Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier indicated could potentially include using nuclear weapons.

SECURITY GUARANTEES

However, the NATO summit in Lithuania ended with the United States and its allies giving Ukraine new security guarantees for its defense against Moscow more than 500 days into Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.

The summit was also buoyed by the prospect of Sweden joining the military alliance after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan abruptly dropped his prior objections this week.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a reaction late Wednesday that the “results of the Vilnius Summit will be carefully analyzed. Taking into account the challenges and threats to Russia’s security and interests that have been identified, we will respond in a timely and appropriate manner, using all means and methods at our disposal.”

The gathering showed NATO’s “inability to adapt to the new geopolitical situation in the world,” the ministry claimed. It said NATO was continually lowering the threshold for the use of force, escalating political and military tensions.

“Taking the course of escalation, they issued a new batch of promises to supply the Kyiv regime with more and more modern and long-range weapons in order to prolong the conflict as long as possible – to exhaustion,” the ministry added.

“In addition to the decisions already taken, we will continue to strengthen the country’s military organization and defense system.”

U.S. President Biden accused Russian President Putin of a “craven lust for land and power” and praised NATO’s unity and support for Ukraine.

Hundreds of thousands of people on both sides have been killed and injured in Europe’s worst armed conflict since World War Two.