US ‘resists’ giving Ukraine NATO accession ‘road map’ - April 7, 2023 at 05:15AM

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 56%. (I’m a bot)

The US is pushing back against efforts by some European allies to offer Ukraine a “Road map” to NATO membership at the Western alliance’s next summit in July, according to a British media report quoting unnamed diplomatic sources.

The US is siding with Germany and Hungary against Poland and the Baltic States on giving Ukraine stronger links to NATO and unequivocal support for its future accession to the alliance, four sources involved in the foreign ministers’ discussions in Brussels this week told the Financial Times.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had set out proposals to give Ukraine “Practical and political” steps to deepen ties, most notably a new official statement on Kyiv’s future membership updating the 2008 declaration that Ukraine would “One day” join the alliance.

Ukraine applied for NATO membership in September, soon after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces.

US sources told the FT that Washington wants NATO members to focus on delivering Ukraine the weapons and aid to resist the Russian invasion – sparking discussions over whether Ukraine’s NATO membership was a distraction from that overriding priority.

“In order for us to get to the question of when and how to get Ukraine into the alliance, we must, as the secretary general has noted, ‘ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation’,” a senior US official told the FT. The report came as British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly also cautioned that now is not the time for a concrete conversation on Ukraine’s NATO bid.

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