Allies Pressure Biden to Hasten NATO Membership for Ukraine
Krisjanis Karins, the American-born prime minister of Latvia, argued that “the only chance for peace in Europe is when Ukraine will be in NATO.” Speaking Wednesday at a strategy conference in Riga, he said that any other outcome means inevitably “Russia will come back.”
The hope in the push is that once Ukraine is a full member of the alliance, Russia would not dare to try to topple the government in Kyiv because an attack on one NATO country is considered an attack on them all. Ukrainian membership has become a “consuming debate,” both in Europe and inside the Biden administration, according to one senior U.S. official who is deeply involved in the discussions.
Only Germany has sided fully with Mr. Biden, though some of the other 29 allies have their own quiet doubts about Ukraine’s readiness to fully join the alliance — and the risks that NATO nations could get sucked directly into a conflict with Russia in the future.
In a blur of memos and meetings, several American officials, led by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, appear to have taken the position that the Biden administration will be forced to be more specific about Ukraine’s path to membership, even if no date can be agreed upon in the middle of a war that has no clear end in sight.
Source: The New York Times
