Ok, so here’s the headline:
NATO Official Gives Ukraine ‘Unacceptable’ Conditions for Joining
Then the first sentence:
The chief of staff for NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has angered Kyiv officials for suggesting Ukraine could become a member of NATO if it ceded some of its territory to Russia.
Then the second sentence.
Stian Jenssen, who has held the title of director of the Private Office of the NATO Secretary General since 2017, reportedly made the suggestion while speaking on a recent panel in the Norwegian city of Arendal.
Now we have 3 slightly different versions of the story, but the differences are very important. Which one is the truth? The headline says he gave conditions to Ukraine, the second implies it, and the third clarifies that he was speaking to a Norwegian discussion panel. In Norway, where there may not have even been an Ukrainians present.
WTF, Newsweek?
I get that Ukraine won’t consider the possibility of ceding any territory, nor should they. They probably don’t like their allies even mentioning it.
But, there’s the separate issue of not being able to join NATO with ongoing territorial disputes. Without much context to go on, I would almost interpret this as something more along the lines of “Ukraine could join NATO tomorrow if the dispute went away (by whatever method)”.
Them capturing back all lost territories including Crimea is possible but unlikely and to be frank I have hard time taking seriously someone presenting themselves as some kind of an expert on the subject matter who refuses to admit this. There’s an acceptable amount of losses for both sides and negotiations wont start untill either side reaches a line after which the casualties becomes untolerable compared to the gains they’re making. Russia can probably keep throwing their poor farmers into the meat grinder for much longer than Ukraine can. This is not especially relevant yet but unless some big break through is in the horizon it might be something people need to seriously start discussing in the somewhat near future.
Also I’m not a military expert either so what do I know. This just seems like the most honest assesment of the situation right now.
