‘We Owe’ Ukraine Admission Into NATO, Panel Says

Ukraine should be quickly enrolled in NATO, according to a panel of experts. While the country has been given no formal timeline, at a four-hour forum on 5 April, several voices called for Ukraine’s rapid integration into NATO, with some suggesting it should come ahead of acceptance into the European Union (EU), for which it was recommended for candidate status in June 2022. They argued that NATO is typically a faster process than EU membership.

“There is a kind of feeling that we owe them something,” said French Navy Vice Adm. Hervé Bléjean, who serves as the director general of EU’s military staff and as director of EU’s Ukraine Assistance Mission. “They are defending our common values, the next EU borders, the next NATO borders.”

While over 50 nations are providing military aid to Ukraine, NATO has so far given only nonlethal support. Although Ukraine requested to join the alliance in 2022, some member nations have reservations about enrolling a country currently engaged in war with Russia.

NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Transformation Chris Badia said: “If a country is at war and it is a European country looking to EU and NATO, [there is] a clear way forward, which is the way the discussion needs to go.”

What Finland Brings

Panelists also celebrated Finland’s entrance as the 31st member of NATO, noting that its military is one of the most competent at deterring Russia. By gaining the Nordic state, NATO now has a 360-degree operational capacity from North Africa to the Black Sea to the Arctic. All the panellists believed that Sweden’s application to join NATO would be approved, despite the current objections of Turkey and Hungary.