NATO pledges money — not membership — as Zelenskyy brings victory plan to Brussels

BRUSSELS — Kyiv will get cash from NATO, but the alliance is waffling on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for Ukraine to get a clear invitation to join the alliance to deter Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

NATO chief Mark Rutte said Wednesday that the alliance will reach a €40 billion military aid target for Ukraine, but was fuzzier on just when Ukraine will get into the alliance.

That’s not what Zelenskyy wants to hear ahead of his visit to Brussels Thursday to push his so-called victory plan, which was presented Wednesday to Ukraine’s parliament. He aims to end the war by securing a NATO membership invitation plus continued arms shipments to force Russia to the negotiating table

Zelenskyy is due to meet EU leaders and NATO defense ministers, including U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

Rutte was non-committal about Zelenskyy’s appeal, saying there are many aspects in his plan that require ongoing, closed-door discussions between NATO countries and Ukraine. He would only repeat NATO’s pledge that Ukraine’s path to membership is “irreversible.”

Although NATO is “standing squarely behind” Kyiv, Rutte said, that “doesn’t mean that I here can say I support the whole plan — that would be a bit difficult, because there are many issues of course you need to understand better.”

He added: “The plan has many aspects and many political and military issues. We really need to hammer out with Ukrainians to understand what is behind it, to see what we can do, what we cannot do.”

Although NATO has long said that Ukraine will eventually be allowed to join, it has not issued an actual invitation. The idea worries many member countries, who fear the alliance could end up being dragged into a war with nuclear-armed Russia.

While membership for Kyiv was pushed to the back burner, the alliance said it will meet a financial target set by former Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. The goal is to ensure a steady flow of cash and weapons to Ukraine amid the political uncertainties of the U.S. presidential election.

“I’m delighted to report that we are firmly on track to delivering [on] the €40 billion pledge for the coming year as agreed in Washington,” Rutte told a press conference on Wednesday, referring to the NATO leaders’ summit in July.

“I can announce today that NATO allies committed €20.9 billion in military assistance to Ukraine during the first half of 2024, and allies are on track to meet their commitments for the rest of the year,” he said.

Rutte also confirmed that a NATO hub in Wiesbaden, Germany to deliver military assistance to Ukraine will be operational next month.

While Ukraine’s Western partners dither about giving Kyiv permission to use donated weapons to hit targets inside Russia and over just when it should be allowed into NATO, Russia’s allies are ramping up their support for Moscow. There are reports from Kyiv that North Korean troops have been dispatched to the war — although Rutte said NATO had no confirmed information yet.

“The growing alignment of authoritarian actors like China, Russia, North Korea and Iran is undermining stability in the Euro-Atlantic and in the Indo-Pacific regions,” Rutte said.

In a sign of the global challenge being posed to democracies, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand will take part in the NATO defense ministers’ meeting on Thursday and Friday for the first time in the alliance’s history.