Russia Demands NATO Revoke Ukraine Membership Pledge to End War

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko stated that one of the key elements to ending the war in Ukraine is the reversal of NATO’s 2008 Bucharest Summit pledge regarding Ukraine’s future membership, reported Russian news agency Interfax on January 24.

Grushko argued that Ukraine’s potential NATO membership “makes achieving peace in Ukraine and creating any kind of security architecture impossible.”

“For us, this is one of the critical elements of any potential agreement regarding the conflict in Ukraine. It addresses the root causes of the conflict. We will seek not only ironclad international legal guarantees that would completely rule out Ukraine’s NATO membership in any form but also insist that this becomes the alliance’s formal policy,” Grushko said.

Grushko also condemned the decision made at NATO’s Bucharest Summit in 2008 to offer a path to membership for Ukraine and Georgia, calling it “catastrophic for European security.”

“The failure to revoke this statement creates an ambiguity that is completely unacceptable for us when we talk about the need to achieve a viable, sustainable, and ironclad resolution to the conflict in and around Ukraine,” Grushko added.

At the 2008 NATO summit, Ukraine and Georgia were denied a Membership Action Plan but received a declaration stating that both nations would one day become members of the alliance.

Earlier, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned that Russian victory over Ukraine would weaken the deterrence capability of the world’s largest military alliance.