Ukraine Has No Real Path to NATO Membership, Rutte Says
Mark Rutte says Ukraine lacks unanimous NATO support for full membership, with the US, Germany and other allies opposed to Kyiv’s accession at this stage.
Ukraine currently has no real prospect of joining the North Atlantic Alliance, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in an interview with Handelsblatt.
Rutte noted that full membership requires unanimous support from all allies, and that such consensus does not exist at this stage. He said the United States, Germany and several other NATO countries are currently opposed to Ukraine’s accession to the bloc.
According to Rutte, without a unified position among the allies, the question of Kyiv’s full membership in NATO has no practical path forward.
In May 2026, former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen proposed admitting Ukraine to the alliance under a model similar to the one used for West Germany in 1955.
Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier said that Ukraine’s possible accession to NATO would pose a threat to Russia’s security. According to him, this factor was one of the reasons behind the launch of the special military operation.