NATO: Sweden 1, Ukraine 0

As Rishi Sunak and 30 other Euro-Atlantic leaders descended on the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius for first day of the annual NATO summit, a glaring difference in mood emerged between the two nations bidding for membership of the military alliance: Sweden is buoyed up, Ukraine is frustrated. 

Fresh promises of long-term military support for Kyiv from members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization wasn’t enough to keep Ukrainian president Zelensky happy; this morning, he hit out at the “unprecedented and absurd” lack of a clear timeframe for his own country’s NATO membership. 

In contrast, “it is a good day for Sweden,” declared Ulf Kristersson, the country’s jubilant Prime Minister, after Turkey finally dropped its opposition to the Nordic country’s bid to join Nato late last night. This paves the way for Sweden to be welcomed into the fold, just months after Finland’s approved membership. 

It’s still unclear why Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – who’d been blocking Sweden’s application for months and accusing it of hosting Kurdish militants – has had a change of heart. But Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary-general, simply says that Sweden has managed to address “Turkey’s legitimate security concerns.” 

As for Kyiv, Stoltenberg was at pains to stress this afternoon that “NATO allies will send a strong, positive message on the path forward for Ukraine” during this year’s summit. Even so, its pathway to joining remains much murkier.

In 2008, Nato agreed that Ukraine “will” become a member of the alliance some day, but didn’t say how or when this might happen. It is still refusing to answer Zelensky’s pleas for a firm timeline. 

Gitanas Nauseda, the president of Lithuania, appears sympathetic to his demands, warning against Kyiv’s membership becoming a horizon: “The more you walk towards it, the farther it is.”

Yet reservations across much of the alliance remain. 

Article 5 of Nato’s charter states that an attack on one Nato member is an attack on all, meaning Ukrainian membership would drag the entire alliance into a direct conflict with Russia. Some might argue that we’re already in a proxy war with Moscow. But sending weapons to Kyiv is different from countries across Europe being forced to send their own soldiers to the frontline.  

Zelensky has accepted that he won’t be let into the fold until the war is over but he wants to join as soon as possible afterwards. 

However, aside from concerns about the work Ukraine must still do to tackle corruption before joining, Nato members are also worried that a ceasefire wouldn’t hold – again, meaning they would be dragged into a direct conflict with Russia. 

Washington is also concerned that a pledge to grant Ukraine membership as soon as the war finishes would give Putin a perverse incentive to prolong the conflict. 

Yet frustrating Kyiv’s membership ambitions is no good either as it undermines the very aim of the summit: to hammer home to Moscow the alliance’s unwavering military support for Ukraine. 

As a result, Stoltenberg and his alliance supporters are towing a delicate diplomatic line. 

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