Zelensky brings Victory Plan to Brussels, but NATO invite still elusive

Zelensky has visited the United States and toured European capitals in recent weeks to seek their backing, but the visits have drawn limited public comments of support and made little apparent progress.

“It is important for us that we are strengthened, and the first step should be invitation,” Zelensky said Thursday after presenting his plan to European leaders at a European Union summit in Brussels. While actual accession “might come after the war,” he acknowledged, the sooner the process starts, the better for a “just peace.”

The Ukrainian president said he discussed the NATO issue with President Joe Biden, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump on his recent U.S. trip. But he added there were fears in the United States that the NATO question “has the potential of dragging the U.S. in the war.”

“So there are certain red lines, even in inviting Ukraine to NATO, but in my view this is not so,” he said. “If you really want Ukraine to be a member of NATO … words and actions should go together.”

Zelensky will stop next at NATO on Thursday afternoon to meet with Secretary General Mark Rutte at the alliance’s headquarters, where his defense minister is also pushing the plan.

The Ukrainian leader’s flurry of visits has succeeded in putting the question of a NATO invitation high on the agenda, but Kyiv’s biggest Western backers have so far approached it with caution.

“We are not at the point right now where the alliance is talking about issuing an invitation in the short term,” U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told reporters on Wednesday. “But as always, we will continue conversations with our friends in Ukraine to talk to them about ways in which they can continue to move closer to this alliance.”

In response to questions on whether he supports the victory plan, Rutte did not exactly say yes. He said Wednesday he was confident Ukraine would one day join the alliance and that he would “applaud when that day comes.” But that “doesn’t mean that I here can say I support the whole plan,” he added. “That would be a bit difficult because there are many issues of course we have to understand better.”

Zelensky’s push is happening against a backdrop of not just the U.S. election but also a tense battlefield situation and a difficult winter after Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

“Right now, there’s discussions here and there, in NATO, in the 32 countries, in Ukraine, but I don’t see a change” in the positions of major countries, including the United States, said a NATO official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.

“Some decisions will not be taken on day one of a new U.S. administration, but things might take a while until new positions are defined,” the official said. “Zelensky might feel that now there’s a momentum.”

Joining NATO would give Ukraine security guarantees from the alliance in the case of future attacks. Even with an invitation, however, Ukraine could still be a long way from actually joining the alliance, with drawn-out accession talks expected.

NATO leaders agreed at their July summit in Washington to support Ukraine “on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership,” but even that wording took weeks of intense negotiation.

Baltic nations, staunch allies of Ukraine gripped by their own fears of becoming future targets for Russia, voiced strong support for a NATO invitation to Ukraine. Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas said it should happen now. He told reporters Thursday that an invite to Ukraine would be an important first step, “a real irreversibility, a point of no return.”

“If you want to push Russians back from NATO territory, from even the idea to test NATO, the best way to do it is to support Ukraine in every means,” he said.

A senior NATO official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to comment on sensitive discussions, said there appeared to be greater momentum around the idea of extending an invitation to NATO. But while Kyiv was hoping for a decision soon, it was unlikely because “there’s a lot of ifs and buts,” he said, and some countries remained unconvinced.

“If we do this, then we actually start negotiating about it, so it’s a little step further, but it is not at all membership yet,” the official said.

He said he would not expect Ukraine’s accession — and the security guarantees enshrined in NATO mutual defense clause that come with it — before the conflict ends “and whatever line of demarcation we have then is stabilized. It won’t happen before.”

Siobhán O’Grady and Anastacia Galouchka in Kyiv, and Beatriz Ríos in Brussels contributed to this report.