NATO leaders will not offer Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Alliance at the summit in July. This was reported by The New York Times (NYT) on April 5.

As stated in the article, Ukraine expects to receive an official invitation to join NATO, but representatives of the bloc agree that this will not happen at events dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the alliance.

«NATO has no desire to accept a new member who, in accordance with the collective security treaty, would drag the bloc into the largest land war in Europe since 1945,» the newspaper writes.

NYT sources reported that the United States and Germany are against Ukraine’s admission to the alliance.

On April 4, the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Dmitry Kuleba, after a meeting of the Ukraine–NATO Council at the level of foreign ministers, said that Ukraine had earned membership in the alliance, and Kiev hoped for early accession to the bloc. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also stressed after the event that Ukraine will eventually join the North Atlantic Alliance, as its members support this decision.

On the same day, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Ukraine is only a tool for NATO against Russia, since the alliance has made Russia the target of its aggressive policy.

Prior to that, on March 1, NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Joane said that the date when Ukraine will join the alliance has not yet been determined. At the same time, Italian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani noted that Ukraine’s immediate entry into the alliance would be «dangerous for everyone.»

On February 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated that the Russian Federation is concerned about the possibility of Kiev being drawn into the bloc, because this is a direct threat to the country’s state security. He noted that Russia was «constantly deceived from the point of view of non-expansion of NATO to the east.»