Kyiv: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg visited Ukraine on Thursday for the first time since Russia invaded more than a year ago, a highly symbolic trip that underscores the alliance’s commitment to helping Kyiv defend itself.
The Kremlin quickly warned that Ukraine must not be allowed to join NATO.
Russia has given various and shifting justifications for going to war, but it has repeatedly pointed to the expansion of the military alliance toward its borders in recent years, including citing fears that Kyiv would be admitted.
Images published in local media showed Stoltenberg apparently paying tribute to fallen Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv’s St. Michael’s Square.
The visit, just two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin himself went to Ukraine, holds important symbolism, but its exact purpose wasn’t immediately clear.
NATO has no official presence in Ukraine, but Stoltenberg has been the strong voice of the alliance throughout the war. He has been instrumental in garnering and coordinating support including weapons, ammunition and training for Ukraine’s embattled troops from the 31 countries that make up the organisation.
Stoltenberg defiantly declared that Ukraine deserves to join the military alliance and pledged continuing support for the country on his first visit to Kyiv since Russia’s invasion just over a year ago.
“Let me be clear, Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family,” Stoltenberg told a press conference.
“Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.”
NATO itself only provides nonlethal support generators, medical equipment, tents, military uniforms and other supplies to the government in Kyiv.
A procession of international leaders has made the journey to Kyiv over the last year and the former Norwegian prime minister is one of the last major Western figures to do so.
NATO, formed to counter the Soviet Union, has long feared being dragged into a wide war with nuclear-armed Russia, but as the
West has moved from hesitantly providing helmets and uniforms to tanks, warplanes and advanced missile systems, high-level visits have become routine.
Stoltenberg had been to Kyiv before the war, but this is his first visit during the hostilities. NATO leaders said in 2008 that Ukraine would join the alliance one day, and Stoltenberg has repeated that promise throughout the course of the war.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that preventing Ukraine from joining NATO remains one of the goals of what Moscow calls its “special military operation.”
Speaking in a conference call on Thursday with reporters, Peskov said that Ukraine’s accession would pose a “serious, significant threat to our country, to our country’s security.”