NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, after the words of the head of his office, Stian Jenssen, about territorial concessions to the Russian Federation from Ukraine, said on Dagbladet TV in an interview at the annual political week Arendalsuka that the position of the alliance on Ukraine is unchanged.
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Earlier, it was reported that the head of the NATO Secretary General’s office does not rule out that Ukraine could become a member of the bloc in exchange for ceding part of the territory in favor of the Russian Federation. Jenssen noted that a discussion about a possible status after the conflict is already underway, and the issue of transferring territories has already been raised. He later characterized his statement as erroneous.
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“Now Stian Jensen himself said that this is a mistake. What was his message and my message is that NATO’s position is unchanged,” Stoltenberg said.
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Earlier, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov called Jenssen’s statements about ceding territories in favor of Russia for the sake of NATO membership “strange stuffing”.
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At the end of September 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Ukraine was applying to join NATO on an expedited basis. At a summit in Lithuania this year, the countries of the bloc approved a multi-year support package for Ukraine, consisting of three points: an assistance plan to achieve compatibility of the Ukrainian Armed Forces with NATO standards, the creation of the Ukraine-NATO Council and confirmation of Ukraine’s right to join the North Atlantic Alliance without first implementing the action plan upon reaching membership. At the same time, no time frame for Ukraine’s entry into the bloc, on which Kyiv insisted, was indicated, as well as the conditions that must be met in order to receive an official invitation.
