The end of illusions. Will Donald Trump really prevent Ukraine's NATO membership?
Commenting on the upcoming agreement to end the war, the President of the United States stated, among other things, that NATO membership for Ukraine is "not a possibility." Furthermore, the head of the White House added that the alleged reason for Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine was the North Atlantic Alliance, specifically the promise that Kyiv would eventually become a full member. "I think that maybe that's where it all started," Donald Trump concluded.
It is quite telling that the high-profile statements from top U.S. officials regarding the impossibility of Ukraine's NATO membership, despite acknowledgment of such intentions at previous Alliance summits, have yet to receive a comment from member states of the military-political bloc. Among the 32 member countries, only Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni responded to the signals from Washington, who, by the way, has developed good and somewhat friendly relations with Trump.
The Italian Prime Minister believes that the best option for security guarantees for Ukraine would be to implement them within NATO. "The foundation for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine can only be laid by providing Kyiv with adequate security guarantees. Such guarantees must be realized within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance. I believe this is the best structure for ensuring a peace that is neither fragile nor temporary, and that prevents the risk of Europe sliding back into the drama of war," Giorgia Meloni noted.
In her view, any other decisions regarding security guarantees "seem more complicated and less effective."
What stance is Trump taking on NATO and why
Petr Oleshchuk believes that the U.S. never had serious intentions of giving the "green light" for Ukraine's accession to the Alliance. "Let Trump instruct Rubio to find somewhere in the State Department archives at least one specific document that mentions a timeline for Ukraine's NATO membership. Rubio, even with the greatest desire, won’t find anything like that, except for declarations about open doors, windows of the Alliance, and so on. Understanding how this issue triggers the Russians, the Americans, while not saying a clear 'No' to Ukraine, effectively manipulated this topic. Trump has closed this avenue of manipulation, publicly acknowledging the American policy towards Ukraine and NATO, which has been the same for decades."
The expert noted that the real, rather than declarative, structure of NATO looks like "the United States +," as the fact that the U.S. is the main military power of the Alliance, its strike force, allows Trump to unilaterally make statements about not admitting Ukraine into this military-political bloc. "Ultimately, it will be the U.S. that decides whether NATO will engage in conflict with someone or not, whether to protect someone or not. And everyone in the Alliance understands this, which is why no one is particularly eager to oppose Trump. So NATO is currently quite shaky against the backdrop of the White House's ambitions to cut Pentagon spending by 30% over the next five years by reducing the presence of American troops in Europe," Oleshchuk noted.
In this context, the expert draws attention to the strategy of the "leading Euro-Atlanticist of Germany," future Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who not only hints at the need to create a European equivalent of NATO but also suggests that the Alliance, as such, may not survive until the next summit in June.
"Merz emphasizes the need to establish a pact with the nuclear powers of Europe—France and the United Kingdom—for self-defense. The future head of the German government transparently hints at the creation of a nuclear capability in Germany. At the same time, Merz's sharp statements regarding the Trump administration raise the question of whether NATO will even exist in a short while. There are indeed significant doubts about this. It is possible that we will soon see new security agreements among Europeans," the political scientist emphasizes.
Could the issue of Ukraine's NATO membership be sidelined?
The political scientist allows for the possibility that the issue of Ukraine and NATO may remain sidelined: "That is, NATO will not provide Russia with guarantees that it will never accept Ukraine into its ranks, as that would be shooting itself in the foot and discrediting all the values on which the Alliance is based. Ukraine will continue to move along the path of implementing NATO standards in terms of political, economic, and military reforms, but this will not be reflected in documents for a certain period."
If Russia insists on a "perpetual" neutral status for Kyiv as part of a peace agreement, Igor Reiterovich notes, there may be issues within Ukraine, as it is unlikely that there will be 300 votes in the Verkhovna Rada to make the necessary changes to the Constitution. Moreover, the expert reminds us that altering the Constitution is prohibited during the legal state of martial law. This means that the NATO issue may remain sidelined de jure, but will allow Putin to claim that "we achieved our goal, and Ukraine will never join NATO." At the legislative level, the analyst predicts that this direction may remain, and it will be publicly highlighted after the change of the ruling regime in Russia.
Commenting on Donald Trump's statement that it was supposedly due to Kyiv's Euro-Atlantic plans that Russia started the war against Ukraine, Igor Reiterovich reminded that Russia's aggression began back in 2014 during Obama's presidency, who explicitly stated that Ukraine would not join the Alliance. Noting that at that time Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic course had not yet been enshrined at the constitutional level, the expert concluded that, in fact, Russia attacked a neutral country. Given this, Igor Reiterovich emphasizes that NATO is by no means the cause of the Russian invasion.
It is worth noting that according to data from a recent sociological survey by the "Rating" group, 67% of citizens currently support Ukraine's accession to NATO.