Nine European presidents supported Ukraine's membership in NATO

The Presidents of Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Slovakia issued a joint statement supporting Ukraine's bid to join the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO). The document was published on the official website of the head of Poland, Andrzej Duda.

"We strongly support the decision of the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008 regarding the future membership of Ukraine," the statement said. At that summit, the Alliance "agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would become members of NATO" and supported their application to join the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP).

The presidents also demanded that Russia immediately withdraw from all occupied territories and called on all allies to significantly increase their military assistance to Ukraine.

The day before, the Politico newspaper, citing an informed source , reported that the administration of US President Joe Biden did not know about Ukraine's plans to apply for NATO membership on an accelerated basis. The publication noted that opinions in the US government on this issue were divided. Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi declined to answer a direct question from the publication about whether she supported Ukraine's entry into NATO, but said that she was in favor of "security guarantees" for Kyiv.

Rep. Mike Quigley, at the same time, supported Ukraine's aspirations for NATO membership. “The fight for Ukraine is the reason why we formed NATO in the first place. After the Second World War, we realized that we should not allow an authoritarian regime to destroy a democratic country. I think we should support Ukraine,” he said.

The government of Canada has stated that they support Ukraine's application.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at a briefing that "every democratic country in Europe has the right to apply to join NATO", and the Alliance respects this right: "NATO's doors remain open." The NATO Secretary General did not answer whether an accelerated procedure for joining the Alliance is possible for Ukraine.

Prior to this, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine would apply for NATO membership in an expedited manner.