NATO Official Gives Ukraine ‘Unacceptable’ Conditions for Joining
Then the first sentence:
The chief of staff for NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has angered Kyiv officials for suggesting Ukraine could become a member of NATO if it ceded some of its territory to Russia.
Then the second sentence.
Stian Jenssen, who has held the title of director of the Private Office of the NATO Secretary General since 2017, reportedly made the suggestion while speaking on a recent panel in the Norwegian city of Arendal.
Now we have 3 slightly different versions of the story, but the differences are very important. Which one is the truth? The headline says he gave conditions to Ukraine, the second implies it, and the third clarifies that he was speaking to a Norwegian discussion panel. In Norway, where there may not have even been an Ukrainians present.
the US is hardly the only country sending Ukraine a bunch of money and weapons. Germany has also been a major supporter— an historical irony I personally find delicious.
The scale of the support provided is very different. While Germany and others have been provided support, I would be concerned if the USA was to withdraw theirs. It would take all other supporters doubling or tripling their aid to make up the loss. Not an impossible task but also not a small one.
see my comment— this article, from headline to its firs two sentences, changes its story 3 times. it’s nonsense.
the NATO SG merely suggested it at some discussion panel in Norway, and not even to any Ukrainians. It sounds like some dummy at Newsweek overheard something they didn’t understand and wrote some crappy clickbait article based on, basically, a bad idea someone floated.
Stian Jenssen, who has held the title of director of the Private Office of the NATO Secretary General since 2017, reportedly made the suggestion while speaking on a recent panel in the Norwegian city of Arendal.
Ukrainian territory has been one of the driving forces in the war Russian President Vladimir Putin launched on Ukraine in February 2022.
Mykhailo Podoliak, Zelensky’s top adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, denounced Jenssen’s suggestion on X, formerly Twitter.
That means deliberately choosing the defeat of democracy, encouraging a global criminal, preserving the Russian regime, destroying international law, and passing the war on to other generations," Podoliak wrote.
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also publicly rejected the suggestion, calling Jenssen’s proposal “absolutely unacceptable” in a statement posted on Facebook.
The conscious or unconscious participation of NATO officials in shaping the narrative regarding the possibility of Ukraine’s giving up its territories plays into the hands of Russia," foreign ministry spokesperson Oleh Nikolenko wrote in part.