US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith said Ukraine has little chance of entering the military alliance, further solidifying suspicions that the military bloc has no intention of allowing the Kiev regime to drag the West into a hot war with Russia.
Smith claimed the US would provide Kiev with other “deliverables,” but didn’t specify what they might consist of.
In an interview with US media published on Friday, Smith said: “I think the allies now are in agreement that a proper invitation is unlikely while they’re engaged in a full-scale war.”
But Smith insisted NATO has an “array of options” short of full Ukrainian NATO membership that could be taken under consideration.
The comments come just days after former NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen claimed that NATO’s Baltic states could send their troops to Ukraine of their own volition even without the military bloc’s accompaniment.
“There is a clear possibility that some countries might take action individually” absent a full NATO commitment to war with Russia, Rasmussen claimed.
Estonian Foreign Minister Kaja Kallas has flatly denied those suggestions, saying Thursday that “not a single country has declared its desire to intervene in this war, to send its military to it, and I have not heard of such plans.”