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NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated that Ukraine will join the Alliance as its 33rd or 34th member in the future.
Rutte made this statement upon arriving at a NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Thursday.
Rutte’s remarks came a day after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented his “victory plan,” one of the points of which is receiving an invitation to join NATO. Rutte refrained from commenting on whether NATO member states had become more supportive of extending such an invitation to Ukraine.
“At the moment, it looks like Ukraine will be the 33rd member. But, perhaps, someone else might come before them. However, Ukraine will be a NATO member in the future. This is what we decided in Washington. So the question now is about the timeline,” said the NATO Secretary General.
Currently, according to him, allies are focused on efforts that pave the way for Ukraine’s membership.
“So, if the specific question is ‘When?’, I can’t answer that right now. But we are working on all these aspects to ensure that they will one day become a NATO member,” Rutte added.
As previously reported, Zelenskyy’s “victory plan” consists of five points and is essentially a “plan to force Russia into peace.”
Notably, the first point of the plan is an immediate invitation for Ukraine to join NATO.
Read also: Russia becomes more aggressive in hybrid attacks on West – NATO Senior Representative
