President Volodymyr Zelensky said he is no longer interested in The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership for Ukraine. This was one of the key issues as Russia had stated for declaring war against Ukraine.
This comes as Zelensky’s attempt to mend fences with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The President of war-torn nation said he is open to “compromise” on the status of two breakaway pro-Russian territories that President Vladimir Putin recognized as independent just before unleashing the invasion on February 24.
“I have cooled down regarding this question a long time ago after we understood that … NATO is not prepared to accept Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in an interview aired on ABC News. “The alliance is afraid of controversial things, and confrontation with Russia,” the president added.
Russia has long been against the idea of Ukraine joining NATO, an intergovernmental alliance created at the start of the Cold War to protect Europe from the Soviet Union. However, after the USSR was fragmented, the alliance continued to expand further east to embrace former Soviet domains.