Rasmussen believes Ukraine should be invited to join NATO in July
Ukraine should receive an invitation to join the North Atlantic Alliance at the summit to be held in Washington in July.
Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said this at a joint briefing with the head of the Presidential Office, Andriy Yermak, in Kyiv on the official launch of the International Working Group on Security and Euro-Atlantic Integration, which should facilitate this process, Censor.NET reports citing Ukrinform.
In his opinion, such a decision could deprive Russian dictator Vladimir Putin of the incentive to continue the war against our country and pave the way for peace.
"I will not hide it: in my opinion, an invitation (to the Alliance - ed.) should be extended to Ukraine at the NATO summit in July. I know that it will be a controversial and unprecedented decision if we invite a country that is already at war to join NATO," the former secretary general said.
He noted that sceptics would argue that "as long as the war continues, NATO cannot extend an invitation to Ukraine," but Rasmussen believes that this is very dangerous because it will strengthen Putin's intention to continue the war.
"This would de facto give Putin a veto, and obviously that is unacceptable. That's why I think we have to extend an invitation and demonstrate that we are sincere when we say that Ukraine will join the Alliance and tell Putin: you cannot prevent this, we will not allow you to win this war, Ukraine is an integral part of NATO," he stressed.
In addition, the West cannot allow Putin to achieve any success in Ukraine because it would send a signal to the rest of the world.
"If Putin can take Crimea, then I can take Taiwan. It's a fact," Rasmussen explained.
He added that an international working group will work on how to use Ukraine's invitation to stop the war.
"So that we can say: the invitation paves the way to peace," the former secretary summed up.
