Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has lashed out at NATO members, calling it “absurd” that the bloc is not willing to immediately set a date and offer an invitation to Ukraine – a move which would almost certainly trigger a full-scale global war.
“[We have] received signals that certain wording is being discussed without Ukraine,” Zelensky wrote in a rambling statement posted to Twitter on Tuesday morning, calling it “unprecedented and absurd when [a] time frame is not set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership.”
“It seems there is no readiness neither to invite Ukraine to NATO nor to make it a member of the Alliance,” he added.
NATO is an alliance based on mutual defense, and Ukraine is currently at war. Bringing the country into NATO now could lead to Ukraine invoking Article 5, which requires other NATO members, from North America to Asia Minor, to enter the conflict.