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NATO military representatives visit Kyiv as Ukraine membership remains uncertain

Kyiv, Oct 7 (UNI) Military representatives from all of NATO’s 32 member states have arrived in Kyiv for the first visit by the alliance’s Military Committee to Ukraine in eight years.
The visit came a day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said possible Ukrainian membership of NATO, one of the central issues in the Ukraine conflict, “is not on the table as we speak”.
Moscow has long opposed NATO’s eastward expansion and has made Ukrainian neutrality a key condition for any settlement, arguing that the alliance’s presence in Ukraine would pose a direct threat to Russian national security.
Ukraine made NATO membership a foreign policy priority after the 2014 Maidan uprising and later enshrined the goal in its constitution.
In September 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky called for “accelerated accession”, while as recently as July he said membership would be “entirely natural”.
NATO continues to officially describe Ukraine as being on an “irreversible path” towards membership.
However, former Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny, who now serves as Kyiv’s ambassador to the UK, said in August that he saw no realistic prospect of it happening.
In a video address on Wednesday, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of the NATO Military Committee, said the delegation had arrived in Kyiv “in full strength” with a message that “the bond between NATO and Ukraine is stronger and stronger”.
The delegation met Ukraine’s senior military leadership to discuss the country’s military priorities and lessons from the conflict that could help NATO strengthen its preparedness for “current and future threats”.
Although Ukraine is not a NATO member, it has developed extensive military ties with the alliance, which has supplied increasingly sophisticated weapons to Kyiv since 2022.
Moscow has repeatedly accused NATO, particularly its European members, of deliberately prolonging the conflict and waging a proxy war against Russia.
Several influential NATO members, including the US and Germany, have repeatedly opposed Ukrainian membership.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in an interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt in early July that “there is no unanimous support now” for Ukraine’s admission.
US President Donald Trump and other senior American officials have also ruled out Ukrainian NATO membership as part of a potential peace settlement with Russia.
Ahead of his February 2025 White House meeting with Zelensky, Trump said “NATO - you can forget about.”
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