If NATO fails to fulfill its promise regarding Ukraine’s membership, it will be a serious blow to the Alliance’s reputation, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said in an interview with Žinių Radijas, as reported by LRT.
“We have significantly reinforced the language about Ukraine’s prospects in NATO at at least the last three NATO summits. Now, if all that is simply dropped, it would seriously damage trust in NATO. It would be a huge blow to NATO’s reputation,” the Lithuanian president said.
Nausėda believes that Ukraine should be invited to the NATO summit in The Hague in June to have the opportunity to present its own position on these issues.
He also noted that there are two ways for Ukraine to obtain security guarantees from the West: one is through the continuous strengthening of the Ukrainian army, and the other is NATO membership. However, he considers the latter option to be more effective for NATO countries.
“A strong Ukrainian army comes with a price — around 50 billion euros, maybe a bit more, per year. And the question is whether the Western world is truly ready to spend such a substantial amount of money annually. If so, great. But we have reasons to believe that each year we face a complicated political process that often fails to generate the necessary funding, and frequently we don’t know until the last moment whether we’ll be able to provide sufficient support to Ukraine or not,” Nausėda remarked.
He added that this is why
“NATO membership is probably the cheapest way to achieve security guarantees for Ukraine.”
Commenting on peace negotiations, Nausėda said that Putin will do everything possible to avoid direct dialogue on peace with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“I am convinced that he (Putin) is not interested in peace at all,” Nausėda said, adding that only a decision by the U.S. political leadership to take a “hardline approach” could change that stance.
He added, “We all know very well who is to blame here and why these negotiations cannot begin.”
