‘Ukraine should focus on preserving sovereignty instead of joining NATO’

Moscow: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that Ukraine should now focus on maintaining its sovereignty and not on joining NATO.

“The most immediate and urgent task is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent democratic nation in Europe. And to do so, we need to mobilize as much as we can, when it comes to military, economic, financial, humanitarian support to Ukraine. 

“If Ukraine does not prevail as an independent sovereign state, then of course the membership issue is not at the table at all,” Stoltenberg said at a press conference following the latest meeting of the NATO foreign ministers in Bucharest.

The two-day meeting took place in the Romanian capital on November 29-30. It focused on the long-term challenges posed by China, as well as on the Ukrainian conflict.

NATO allies promised Ukraine and Georgia back in 2008 that they would one day join the military alliance but said neither was ready to be admitted immediately.