There is now 'complete acceptance' Ukraine will one day join NATO: UK defense minister

There is agreement that Ukraine will one day join the ranks of the NATO alliance, and the only question is the timing, Britain’s defense minister told NATO colleagues on the sidelines of a summit on Wednesday.

"There is now a complete acceptance that Ukraine will join NATO,” Ben Wallace told a panel during the summit in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius. “It's not an ‘if’ anymore but it is a when."

"And I understand (Ukrainian) President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy's impatience on 'I want a timetable.' I think it is accepted that Ukraine will join NATO, when that happens is … condition based," he told the panel, which included Romanian Foreign Minister Luminita Odobescu, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström, and Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren.

A Vilnius communique reached at the summit on Tuesday underlined NATO’s support for Ukraine but gave no clear timetable on when the country may be able to join the alliance, something Zelenskyy has been pushing for publicly.

On the communique, Wallace stressed that "everyone agrees” on “the long-running condition … for any nation that wants to join, we don't want to import a conflict in Article 5 issues straight into the NATO alliance.”

Under NATO’s well-known Article 5, an attack on one member of the alliance is considered an attack on all, which means any prospective members with pre-existing disputes run the risk of getting the alliance involved in an escalating conflict.

“And I think that (condition) has been pretty clear. The Ukrainians have always understood that and that's the reality," Wallace added.

Separately, he said in light of the progress Ukraine is making in the ongoing war, Russia might soon face a situation in which it has to choose, when they have to “sort of barricade themselves into Crimea,” a peninsula Russia took over and illegally annexed in 2014, years before the current conflict.

The current Ukraine war, which Russia launched over 500 days ago, began in February 2022.

In starting the war, President Vladimir Putin voiced disapproval of the idea that Ukraine might one day join NATO, but the war has spurred Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy to push harder to join the alliance.

- Sweden’s NATO accession

Also speaking at the panel, Swedish Foreign Minister Billstrom spoke about Sweden's prospective accession to NATO, after Monday’s breakthrough with Türkiye’s green light paving the way for Stockholm’s accession.

On whether this dramatic development was linked to Türkiye’s wish to buy F-16 jets from the US, Billstrom said: “I think that President Biden has spoken very openly about a deal being presented, which entailed both Türkiye and Greece and the US. But regardless of that, this was always a bilateral or perhaps a trilateral thing between those countries.”

US and Turkish officials have both denied there was any linkage between the issues, despite suggestions to the contrary.

Billstrom added: "It's not something which concerns Sweden, we have never been part of such a deal we have not been involved with it.”

“We are of course, pleased and proud,” he said, “to bringing NATO closer to a decision to start the ratification process of Sweden's NATO accession."

Sweden and Finland both decided to seek NATO membership soon after Russia launched its war on Ukraine. While Finland gained membership this April, Türkiye said Sweden would need to address Ankara's security concerns – particularly over terrorism – before getting a green light, and Turkish leaders say they expect steps from Stockholm after Monday’s agreement to give a green light.

New members of NATO must get unanimous agreement from all the current members. Türkiye has been a NATO member for over 70 years, and boasts its second-largest army.