Ukraine’s Accession to NATO Would Become Another Step to Confrontation With Russia: Macron
A picture taken on November 20, 2019 shows NATO flags at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.
PARIS (Sputnik) – French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that Ukraine’s accession to NATO would be perceived by Russia as yet another step towards confrontation, even though the country’s admission into NATO was not guaranteed. “Accession of Ukraine to NATO will be perceived by Russia as something confrontational… Regardless of whether Ukraine will join NATO, and this is not the most likely scenario, or not, it must be given security guarantees,” Macron said in an interview with the Monde newspaper. He noted that the security architecture in Europe must include guarantees not only for Ukraine, but also for Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and, eventually, Belarus. “We can’t think about the security of this zone through the prism of NATO only,” he said. NATO members supported Ukraine and Georgia’s early admission into NATO at the 2008 Bucharest Summit. In June 2022, at the summit in Brussels they reiterated their commitment, however no deadline was suggested. In December 2021, Russia proposed draft agreements on security guarantees for NATO and the United States, requesting that the alliance would not expand eastward and will not incorporate Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries. On January 2022, the US and NATO officially rejected Russia’s proposal, stressing that the alliance would not change its stance on the right of sovereign nations to join the bloc. Following this deadlock, Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine in February.