Zelenskyy calls on allies to influence US position on Ukraine's NATO membership

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy believes that a number of Ukraine’s allies that support inviting Ukraine to become a NATO member might be able to persuade the US to back their position.

Source: President Zelenskyy in an interview with The Guardian, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Zelenskyy said that some of the decisions with regard to Ukraine are "everyone’s decisions" and that a number of countries support inviting Ukraine to join NATO.

Quote from Zelenskyy: "The UK supports us [joining] NATO. The US is hesitating: they’re afraid of escalation. But we can’t say that ‘The US is afraid of escalation while all other countries support Ukraine,’ – that’s not the way to approach this issue.

If everyone supports us, I think everyone will have enough strength, reason and influence to communicate with the US, to change their mind, to change their approach. It’s important that Ukraine isn’t the only country raising the issue of its NATO membership."

Details: Zelenskyy drew an analogy between the issue of Ukraine’s NATO membership and discussions about other decisions that have proven difficult for the Allied states, such as whether Ukraine can use Western weapons to strike targets in Russia – something that the US has finally come round to only recently.

"First they had to see that part of Kharkiv [Oblast] had been captured and only then did they give [Ukraine] permission to strike clusters of [Russian] forces near the border. They have to have more faith in us," Zelenskyy said.

Background: 

• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the July NATO summit in Washington, DC, should be an occasion to provide a "bridge" for Ukraine’s membership in the Alliance.
• On 29 May, US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith said that important changes in the wording regarding Ukraine's membership prospects will be made at an upcoming meeting of NATO leaders in Washington and that NATO has agreed on the need to send a political signal about Ukraine's pathway to NATO membership.

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