Zaluzhnyi says Ukraine will never join NATO

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, has stated that Ukraine will never become a NATO member.

He expressed his view during a discussion on Euro-Atlantic integration at a general meeting of ambassadors in Kyiv, according to Yevropeyska Pravda.

“I know NATO very well. For about 12 years, I personally worked on getting us to adopt NATO standards, and every year I listened to fairy tales about how we were just about to join NATO. We will never join it, unfortunately!” — Zaluzhnyi said.

The general explained his position by saying that it is “impossible to join, with the level of development that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have… an organization guided by the doctrines of the Second World War.” In his view, the alliance will remain as it currently exists, and Ukraine will need another 12 years just to “at least match half the level of the Russian Federation” by the required standards.

At the end of last year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that the country does not need to change its Constitution, which enshrines the aspiration to join NATO. At the same time, he expressed readiness to forgo NATO membership in exchange for security guarantees from the United States and Europe.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said last year that the question of Ukraine’s accession to the alliance is not on the agenda, though he subsequently noted that there is an “irreversible path to NATO” for Ukraine. US President Donald Trump has ruled out Ukrainian membership in the alliance.

Russia insists on Ukraine’s renunciation of NATO membership as one of the conditions for peace negotiations. President Vladimir Putin put forward this demand in the summer of 2024. According to him, Moscow and Kyiv had agreed that Ukraine would be independent, and there was no talk of joining NATO. However, the Ukrainian side abandoned the neutrality provisions in its declaration of independence and enshrined the aspiration to join NATO in the Constitution, Putin noted.