Give Ukraine quick path to Nato after war, Lithuania leader urges allies
- Bolder stance will lift Kyiv’s ‘fighting spirit’ against Russia, Lithuania’s president says
- Kyiv is pressing for strong Nato membership signal at summit in Vilnius next week
Lithuania’s president urged Nato leaders to be bolder in addressing Ukraine’s push for membership at a summit in his country next week, saying this would boost Kyiv’s battlefield performance while Moscow would see any caution as weakness.
In an interview with Reuters, President Gitanas Nauseda advised Nato allies to disregard fears that bringing Ukraine into the US-led military alliance would provoke Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 22, 2022.
“We should not hesitate to take bolder decisions because otherwise the Putin regime will decide that the Western allies are too weak, (that they should be) pushed to the corner and they will surrender”, Nauseda said.
“Our stronger wording on Ukraine’s (membership) perspective would for sure increase the fighting spirit of Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield. And this is very important”, he added.
Ukraine has been pressing Nato to declare at the July 11 and 12 summit that Kyiv would join the alliance soon after the end of the war, and to set out a road map to membership.
But other members such as the US and Germany have been more cautious, wary of any moves they fear could take the alliance closer to an active war with Russia, which has long seen Nato’s expansion as evidence of Western hostility.