Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's former commander-in-chief and now its ambassador to the United Kingdom, said Ukraine will unfortunately never join NATO, a remark made during a meeting of Ukrainian ambassadors in Kyiv that has triggered sharp debate across Ukraine.
The question put to Zaluzhnyi concerned Ukraine's possible accession to the Joint Expeditionary Force, but he redirected the discussion to NATO, and his answer became the most talked-about moment of the meeting.
Zaluzhnyi said he knows the Alliance firsthand, having spent twelve years personally working to implement NATO standards in Ukraine's armed forces. He said it is now NATO's turn to make a similar journey, estimating the Alliance would need around 12 years to update its military approaches and come close to the current level of Russia's army.
He said he had listened every year to promises that Ukraine was about to join NATO, but that it would unfortunately never happen, because it is impossible for a force at Ukraine's level of development to join an organization still operating on doctrines from World War II.
Criticism in Ukraine
Zaluzhnyi's comments went viral in Ukraine's information space. Some commentators pushed back, pointing out that the goal of NATO membership is written into Ukraine's constitution, a provision Russia wants rewritten, and that many Ukrainians are fighting with weapons in hand to defend the right to choose their own alliances.
Heorhii Tuka, a former deputy minister for temporarily occupied territories, wrote that Ukraine's soldiers are not giving their lives for any past or present president, for NATO, or for the European Union, but for freedom, meaning the freedom to choose their own future. He said this freedom of choice is exactly what Russia is trying to take from Ukraine, in an attempt to turn the country into what he called Belarus 2.0.
Journalist Vitaliy Portnikov argued that the political and security situation in the world changes daily, making it too confident to declare either that Ukraine will never join NATO or that it certainly will. He said what will remain constant is the existence of security poles, and that any country unable or unwilling to build allied ties with the Western pole, still symbolized by the United States and NATO, will inevitably fall into the Eastern pole, meaning, in Ukraine's case, becoming part of Russian territory.
Support for Zaluzhnyi
Many bloggers and military analysts said Zaluzhnyi had simply voiced an uncomfortable but widely recognized truth about NATO falling behind the realities of modern warfare, and that this part of his remarks resonated most with Ukrainian analysts.
Oleksandr Surkov, a military expert and operational reserve officer, wrote that Zaluzhnyi had found the courage to say that the king has no clothes. He said it became clear as far back as 2014 that NATO, as a military and security bloc, was dysfunctional and offered almost no real support, and that by around 2017 it turned out the celebrated NATO standards had already grown outdated.
Ukrainian entrepreneur and volunteer Yuriy Sapronov thanked Zaluzhnyi for his directness, saying there should be no illusions about Ukraine joining NATO, just as there should be none about producing Patriot missile systems in Ukraine.
Espreso journalist Maryna Danyliuk-Yarmolaieva said the former commander has every right to criticize NATO, arguing his experience of real, modern-style war far exceeds that of a great many NATO generals. She said Zaluzhnyi, as one of the top military visionaries, is entitled to reproach the Alliance, especially at a time when several NATO countries are not ashamed to say they will not be attacked as long as Russia remains bogged down fighting in Ukraine.
Ihor Fedirko, executive director of the Ukrainian Council of Arms Manufacturers, who takes part in meetings with ambassadors in Kyiv, told Radio Svoboda that Zaluzhnyi had voiced the view of many Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. He asked what more Ukraine has to prove to its European and American partners to show that it does not just match but surpasses any army in Europe. He said it is difficult to watch Ukraine being given the runaround for years, that Zaluzhnyi is tired of it too, and that the remark amounts to a message that if NATO does not find a way to modernize and admit Ukraine, Ukraine might come up with something else instead.
What comes instead of NATO
Zaluzhnyi acknowledged that Ukraine still needs technologies currently held by NATO countries, including in areas such as countering ballistic missiles and space capabilities. But on security guarantees, he said Ukraine will have to rely on other alliances, saying Ukraine will likely attach itself to blocs and unions still being formed, most probably discussing a European military security bloc.
That part of his remarks drew far more disagreement than his criticism of NATO's military doctrines. Fedirko said he currently sees no alternative to NATO membership, since no other bloc, however weak, slow or inflexible it may be, has yet fully formed to replace it. He noted that Ukraine has already experienced non-aligned status once, and said everyone can see where that led.
Portnikov doubted that partners would risk a serious alliance with a country still at war, and said that even after the war ends, Europe will keep looking primarily to the United States for security guarantees. He said the United States holds a card no other country in the world has, a nuclear arsenal capable of matching Russia's.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he does not see Ukraine joining NATO.
NATO's response
Asked by Radio Svoboda to comment on Zaluzhnyi's statements, NATO's press service pointed to remarks made by Secretary General Mark Rutte on June 3 during a visit to Kyiv, where he acknowledged there is no consensus within NATO on Ukraine's membership.
Speaking at a joint press conference with President Volodymyr Zelensky, Rutte said a great many processes are underway and that Ukraine is becoming increasingly integrated with NATO in terms of interoperability and standards. But he said the honest answer on full membership is that there is currently no unanimity on the question, adding that this is not new and has been the case for some time.
Gustav Gressel, a military analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said it is premature to declare Ukraine will never join NATO. He said it remains possible Ukraine will still join, just as it is possible NATO will lose much of its political weight by then, making Ukraine's accession largely irrelevant. He said it is also possible Ukraine could join the European Union, which could later absorb NATO's European infrastructure, automatically bringing Ukraine into that system, or that an entirely new organization could emerge instead.
Gressel said it is currently impossible to say which scenario is most likely, describing Europe's security architecture as undergoing tectonic shifts driven by pressure from both east and west, much of it dependent on the outcome of the war in Ukraine, which he said is not yet clear. He was skeptical, however, about the emergence of a new European military alliance.
He said that opening what he called a Pandora's box, whether by changing the European Union's founding treaties or seeking a replacement for the Washington Treaty, would bring many countries to the negotiating table, each trying to shape the future agreement according to its own often short-sighted interests, which is why nobody wants to go through that process.
Gressel said he agrees with Zaluzhnyi that NATO's military doctrine is outdated, describing a strong attachment to the past within the Alliance and pointing to what he called many elderly generals now buying the weapons systems they dreamed of in their youth. He said their youth is long gone, and that future military development will build on the level Ukraine has reached today rather than return to NATO's approach from the 1980s.
