TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th July, 2023) Former US Ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute denied that the allies could have prevented the conflict in Ukraine by arming Kiev after Crimea split away from the country in 2014.
Lute, who represented the United States at the North Atlantic Council, NATO's standing political body, from 2013-2017, admitted in an interview to Japan's Asahi Shimbun that the allies could have taken a tougher stance on Russia, sending weapons to Ukraine back in 2015, but he argued this would not necessarily avert Moscow from launching a military operation in February 2022.
Ukraine is expected to press NATO leaders to issue it with a formal invitation to join the military alliance at the Vilnius summit on Tuesday and Wednesday. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that the leaders would offer Kiev a multiyear support package and "set out a vision for its future" in the alliance but would not begin membership talks soon.
NATO pledged in 2008 that Ukraine would become a member one day but no progress was made. Ukraine applied for accelerated NATO membership in September 2022. Lute told the Japanese daily that Ukraine still had issues to deal with before it could join, including widespread corruption and its noncompliance with NATO standards.
