Ukraine seeks NATO membership in tacit message to Putin
Hindustan TimesUkrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has urged his NATO counterparts to issue an invitation at a meeting in Brussels next week to Kyiv to join the Western military alliance, according to the text of a letter seen by Reuters on Friday. The letter reflects Ukraine's renewed push to secure an invitation to join NATO, which is part of a "victory plan" outlined last month by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to end the war triggered by Russia's 2022 invasion. "On the contrary, with a clear understanding that Ukraine's membership in NATO is inevitable, Russia will lose one of its main arguments for continuing this unjustified war," he wrote. "I urge you to endorse the decision to invite Ukraine to join the Alliance as one of the outcomes of the NATO Foreign Ministerial Meeting on 3-4 December 2024." Olga Stefanishyna, Ukraine's deputy prime minister in charge of NATO affairs, said Kyiv understood that the consensus for an invitation to join NATO "is not yet there" but the letter was meant to send a strong political signal.