It is becoming increasingly difficult to provide assistance to Ukraine: NATO Secretary General's Assistant

Ukraine has been promised membership in NATO, but there is currently no specific timeline for that process. This was stated by David van Weel, the assistant to the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance, during his visit to Japan, as reported by TASS.

He noted that Kyiv must meet several conditions for NATO membership. “Alongside the war with Russia, Ukraine is currently facing the challenge of modernizing its governance system. This is a very important issue. I cannot currently pinpoint a specific timeline for Ukraine's membership in NATO. We want to avoid escalation of the current war into a confrontation between NATO and Russia. We need to understand whether we can determine, in wartime, if Ukraine has reached a certain level in its governance system. But NATO membership has been promised to them,” he added.

“With the prolongation of the war, it is becoming increasingly difficult to provide assistance to Ukraine,” the Secretary General's assistant admitted. At the same time, he assured that the provision of weapons and financial resources to Kyiv would continue.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly stated that the time has come to invite Ukraine to NATO. At the end of September 2022, he signed an application for accelerated NATO membership. Later, the EU internal market commissioner Thierry Breton stated that Ukraine could not join NATO amid military operations on its territory. Nevertheless, Ukrainian authorities expected to receive an invitation from the alliance at this year's summit in Vilnius in July. However, no specific decisions were made regarding the timelines for inviting Kyiv.