U.S., NATO Allies at Odds Over Ukraine Membership

VILNIUS, Lithuania—President Biden remained at odds with other NATO leaders over Ukraine’s potential membership as alliance leaders gathered for a summit, the mood at which had been boosted by Sweden’s prospective accession.

Officials of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had hoped that by the time leaders had gathered for their opening session, wording about Ukraine joining the alliance would have been settled. But as the heads of government and state arrived, the critical portion of the meeting’s official communiqué—as little as one sentence in a multipage document—remained unresolved, according to diplomats close to the talks.

Biden has emerged as the leading opponent to granting Ukraine speedy membership in the alliance, or even offering clear guidance on when membership might be considered, putting him at odds with several key American allies. The question of Ukraine’s place in NATO is testing the Western world’s unprecedented unity in the face of Russia’s assault.

The U.S. president has spent much of the past year rallying the world behind Ukraine, funneling billions of dollars in aid to the war-torn country and strengthening ties with President Volodymyr Zelensky. But for Biden, Kyiv’s campaign for rapid NATO entry is a bridge too far.

Biden arrived late Monday in the Lithuanian capital, about 140 miles from the Russian border, for the second gathering of NATO leaders since Russia launched its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. His goal: reinforcing the U.S. commitment to support Kyiv’s fight for as long as it takes, amid political headwinds at home and a growing strain on the American defense industry.

NATO’s cohesion got a lift late Monday when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dropped his opposition to Sweden’s application for membership, saying he would recommend that his country’s parliament approve it as soon as possible. Hungary also needs to approve the bid for it to be finalized.

As leaders prepared to meet on Tuesday, officials were still debating whether or how they would refer to an “invitation” to Ukraine, among other wording issues, according to diplomats. NATO members in 2008 said that Ukraine and Georgia would join the alliance, but gave no time frame.

Biden on Tuesday sought to smooth over any disagreements when NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg greeted him at the summit. “We agree on the language that you propose, relative to the future of Ukraine being able to join NATO,” Biden said. “And we’re looking for a continued united NATO.”

U.S. diplomats handling communiqué negotiations have tried “to bridge the gap among allies and reach consensus,” said a U.S. official. “So as a result, we have sought to find agreed language that reflects Ukraine’s progress on its Euro-Atlantic aspirations, which all allies can agree to.”

Biden’s outspoken concerns with Ukraine’s push to join NATO—he has raised the prospect that doing it too early could start World War III—have frustrated officials in Kyiv and beyond.

“I don’t think it’s ready for membership in NATO,” Biden said in an interview with CNN that aired on Sunday, warning that bringing Ukraine into the alliance while it is at war with Russia would draw the U.S. and Europe into the conflict. He said NATO should lay out a path for Ukraine’s eventual entry into the alliance, but he said Kyiv still has work to do to meet the alliance’s standards for membership in areas like democratization. 

In drawing a line on the issue, Biden is breaking with several NATO members, including Central and Eastern European nations that have publicly backed Kyiv’s push for expedited membership. The president has embraced the so-called Israel model, in which the U.S. would provide security assistance to Ukraine without a guarantee that it will use military force to defend the country. 

“Inviting Ukraine to join NATO would be our strategic responsibility and would firmly link Ukraine to the Euro-Atlantic security architecture,” the host of the NATO summit, Lithuanian President

Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, has called on NATO members to articulate a clear path for Ukraine to enter the alliance during the meeting. He argues that membership would deter Russia from attacking again.

“The Biden administration is notably isolated in the alliance in its resistance to giving Ukraine membership,” said Ian Brzezinski,

A growing chorus of senior U.S. foreign policy officials is calling on Biden to temper his reluctance. 

“The likelihood of a future Ukraine dragging us into a war is much greater if they’re untethered to any Western alliance,” said Tom Malinowski, a former Democratic congressman from New Jersey who previously worked at the State Department during the Obama administration. “I don’t think it’s in our interest to see a Ukraine that is armed to the teeth, highly nationalistic, completely untethered to any western alliance and thus free to do whatever it wants.”

Malinowski was one of nearly four dozen foreign policy experts and former U.S. officials who signed a recent open letter calling on NATO members to use the summit to “launch a road map that will lead clearly to Ukraine’s membership in NATO at the earliest achievable date.”

Some of the signatories on the letter have argued that Ukraine’s membership in NATO can be structured in a way that applies the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defense obligation only to territory Ukraine controls at the time of ascension, which would prevent members from being drawn into a fight over winning back Crimea and other areas that Russia annexed. 

The Biden administration has been working with allies to provide Ukraine with security assurances, according to U.S. and European officials, a promise that is both welcomed by Kyiv and falls short of its desire for guarantees that pave the way toward NATO membership.

NATO countries are also searching for a compromise that signals their intent to welcome Ukraine into the alliance without offering a firm timeline. 

Members of the alliance are set to waive a requirement that Kyiv complete a bureaucratic membership plan that could have delayed the country’s accession to the group for years, according to U.S. and European officials.

But the move, which will be included in the NATO communiqué to be released at the close of the alliance’s summit in Lithuania, doesn’t mean Ukraine will join the group immediately. The country will still need to meet NATO’s standards for membership, including on democratic reforms, officials said.

Zelensky is planning to attend the summit, Stoltenberg said on Monday. Biden plans to meet him on the sidelines of the summit, people familiar with the matter said. The Ukrainian president previously said he would only attend the meeting if he received a signal from NATO members on his country’s accession into the alliance. 

Despite the Biden administration’s efforts to emphasize unity, other signs of disagreement in the alliance have emerged. Turkey only dropped its opposition to Sweden’s membership in NATO on Monday, more than a year after the long-neutral Nordic country applied. And several NATO members have raised objections to the Inflation Reduction Act, the sweeping U.S. law that includes billions in incentives for the American clean energy sector. 

After the NATO summit, Biden is slated to travel to Finland, where he is expected to mark the country’s recent entry into the alliance. 

Write to Andrew Restuccia at [email protected], Vivian Salama at [email protected] and Daniel Michaels at [email protected]