“We must recognize” that Ukraine will not be able to join NATO, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday, while this file is one of the reasons given by Russia to justify its invasion of the country. “We heard for years that the doors were open, but we also heard that we could not join. This is the truth and it must be recognized,” said the Ukrainian president during a videoconference with leaders of the countries of the Joint Expeditionary Force, a military coalition led by the United Kingdom.
Why Zelensky calls for a no-fly zone
“I am happy that our people are starting to understand this and to rely only on their strengths,” he added. However, he regretted that NATO, “which seems hypnotized by Russian aggression”, refuses to create a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
“We hear arguments that ‘World War III’ could start if NATO closes its skies to Russian planes. That’s why the humanitarian air zone was not created over Ukraine and that’s why the Russians can bomb cities and kill people, blow up hospitals and schools,” he said.
A position on NATO tempered from last week
President Zelensky had already tempered his position on NATO last week in an interview with the American channel ABC. “Regarding NATO, I tempered my position on this issue some time ago, when we understood” that “NATO was not ready to accept Ukraine”, a- he said in this interview on March 8. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 and is waging war in this former Soviet republic.
Moscow says it wants a guarantee that kyiv will never enter NATO, a transatlantic alliance created to protect Europe from the threat of the USSR at the start of the Cold War and which then gradually expanded to the gates of Russia.
The Ukrainian president also judged that the international sanctions were “not sufficient” and demanded “an embargo on all trade with Russia”. “We must ban the Russian fleet from using the ports of the world. We must disconnect all Russian banks from the Swift system. We must recognize Russia as a terrorist state and introduce an embargo on all trade with Russia,” he said. he declared.