White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Ukraine’s request for rapid ascension into NATO should occur at a later date.
Sullivan told reporters on Friday that the request, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced hours earlier, “should be taken up at a different time” because “our view is that the best way for us to support Ukraine is through practical on the ground support in Ukraine.”
RUSSIAN ANNEXATION OF OCCUPIED UKRAINE A ‘DANGEROUS ESCALATION,’ UN CHIEF SAYS
He also announced that the administration would be moving forward with another military aid package “immediately,” which comes only days after the Pentagon announced a $1.1 billion package, and it brought the U.S. total military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded to more than $16 billion.
Zelensky, earlier on Friday, revealed the country was applying for rapid ascension into the partnership, while Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg left the possibility open shortly thereafter. The Ukrainian leader’s announcement came shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of four regions in Ukraine.
“We are de facto allies,” he said in a statement. “This has already been achieved. De facto, we have already completed our path to NATO. De facto, we have already proven interoperability with the Alliance’s standards, they are real for Ukraine — real on the battlefield and in all aspects of our interaction.”
Putin has claimed that NATO expansion on its eastern flank is a threat to Russia, and he has used this as a justification for the war, thus making Ukraine’s push for membership a significant development if it moves forward. Should NATO affirm Ukraine’s application, it would represent a significant escalation because it would bring NATO’s alliance directly into the heart of the conflict, which is a concern the West has had for months.
Russia’s annexation of the self-declared Donetsk Republic and Luhansk Republic, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson occurred days after each region concluded referendums on whether to join the Russian Federation, though Western leaders universally denounced them as illegitimate.
“The United States — I want to be very clear about this — the United States will never, never, never recognize Russia’s claims on Ukraine’s sovereign territory. The so-called referenda was a sham, an absolute sham. The results were manufactured in Moscow,” President Joe Biden said.
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The Biden administration announced new sanctions against top Russian officials and their families in response to the annexation and warned that it would target international suppliers that aid Moscow’s war effort.
The move demonstrates a significant escalation in the war that has gone on for seven months. Putin displayed a strong facade during the speech celebrating the annexations, which is not met by the Russian military’s results on the battlefield. Earlier this month, Ukraine launched its most successful counteroffensive in the northeast and was able to liberate significant swaths of territory in the area.
