“We must recognize” that Ukraine will not be able to join NATO, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday, while this file is one of the reasons given by Russia to justify its invasion of the country.
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“We heard for years that the doors were open, but we also heard that we couldn’t join. This is the truth and it must be recognized, ”said the Ukrainian president during a videoconference with leaders of the countries of the Joint Expeditionary Force, a military coalition led by the United Kingdom.
“I am happy that our people are starting to understand this and to rely only on their strengths,” he added.
However, he regretted that NATO, “which seems hypnotized by Russian aggression”, refuses to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
“You hear arguments that World War III could start if NATO closes its skies to Russian planes. That’s why the air humanitarian zone was not created over Ukraine and that’s why the Russians can bomb cities and kill people, blow up hospitals and schools,” he launched.
President Zelensky had already tempered his position on NATO last week in an interview with the American channel ABC.
“As for NATO, I tempered my position on this issue quite some time ago, when we understood” that “NATO was not ready to accept Ukraine”, a- he said in this interview on March 8.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 and is waging war in this former Soviet republic.
Moscow says it wants guarantees that Kyiv will never join NATO, a transatlantic alliance created to protect Europe from the threat of the USSR at the start of the Cold War and which then gradually expanded to the gates of Russia.