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In the weeks remaining before the NATO summit in July, Ukraine is intensifying its appeals to the members of the alliance in order to receive a positive response to its application for membership. Kyiv presents practical and moral arguments in favor of Vilnius being invited to join the alliance.

“It is difficult to even say whose contribution to European and Euro-Atlantic security is greater than the contribution of our soldiers who defend freedom with their lives. I am grateful to all partners who support us in this. Ukraine did everything to ensure the approval of our application to NATO,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during the visit of the alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to Kyiv on Thursday.

Stoltenberg himself, on the eve of the meeting at the Ramstein air base in Germany, where the allies discussed plans to help Ukraine, also confirmed that “all NATO allies agreed that Ukraine will become a member” and that Ukraine deserved its place in the alliance. But as before, he emphasized that now the issue of membership is not the right time. “Now the main focus is to ensure Ukraine’s victory over Russia,” Stoltenberg said.

“Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family. Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO. Over time, our support will help you make this possible,” Stoltenberg said in Kyiv, where he visited for the first time since the full-scale Russian aggression.

Not only Germany and France are in favor of leaving the question of membership “for after the war”, which has held to this position since the Bucharest NATO summit in 2008, when Ukraine and Georgia were promised that they would become NATO members, but did not say when. The United States, which during the administration of the then President George W. Bush insisted that Ukraine receive a plan for membership, now under the administration of President Joe Biden, says that Ukraine must first win the war, and only then think about joining NATO.

As Voice of America reported, on the sidelines of the Rammstein group meeting in Germany, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius repeated his country’s position: “Everyone sees Ukraine as a NATO ally in the future. But I’d say it’s pretty far.”

On the other hand, NATO countries from Central and Eastern Europe insist that Ukraine should be offered membership as soon as possible. And the first step to this at the summit in Vilnius should be to provide it with a detailed “road map” for entry.

Opponents of the idea say that the alliance’s 31 members will have to decide whether their collective security will be stronger or weaker after Ukraine joins, and after Article 5 of the NATO Charter applies to it, that is, the clause on collective security, when an attack on one of the alliance’s members is considered an attack on the entire alliance.

As the German columnist says Andreas Kluthwho covers European politics for the Bloomberg agency, says that unlike Macedonia or other recently accepted NATO members, for which this issue has not arisen, for Ukraine it is – the country is at war, and not with anyone, but with the state, to contain which NATO was created.

“Finland makes NATO stronger, as will Sweden when it joins. Ukraine is not,” says Klut in his column.

Also, according to the German columnist, Kyiv is now free to decide on its own how to wage a war with Russia and what goals to set. If it becomes part of the alliance, the entire alliance may depend on Kyiv’s decision.

“NATO could “blindly enter” the Third World War, depending on Kyiv’s choice. To avoid this, the West should interfere in Ukraine’s decision,” the observer believes, adding that NATO at this stage should support Kyiv and leave Moscow in no doubt that an attack on any of the allies will lead to the defeat of Russia.

Other observers suggest looking at the current situation from the perspective of a far-reaching perspective. Editor-in-chief of the Strategic Europe edition of the Carnegie Europe research group Judy Dempsey believes that the decision that will be made during the summit on the issue of Ukraine “will have a fundamental and lasting impact on Ukraine and the region.” In her opinion, the goal of Russian President Vladimir Putin is to stop the path to modernization, he has already done it for his country, and he wants to do the same for Ukraine.

“Without a comprehensive package of security measures and security guarantees offered by the West, Ukraine will not be able to complete its transformation to modernity. A country seeking to build a democracy needs security to support and protect such a huge and ambitious project,” Dempsey says in his article.

According to her, most NATO countries understand this. However, not all of them want to offer Ukraine a Membership Action Plan for joining NATO.

For example, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is called a supporter of pro-Russian views in the West, found only one word to comment on NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s statement that Ukraine’s place is in the alliance.

“What?!”, he wrote on his Twitter page.

Hungary was the last European member of the alliance to vote for Finland’s recent accession, although it did not have strong arguments against the country’s accession, unlike Turkey, which was also opposed and still holds back Sweden’s accession.

Raising the stakes, the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi declared that he would come to the NATO summer summit in Vilnius only if a specific path to NATO membership was opened to him. Kyiv submitted an application to join the alliance in September, but NATO understood this application more as a political step, the practical component of which is postponed until a peaceful future.