KYIV, July 6 — The shift in Ukraine’s relationship with NATO has been building for decades, but the real acceleration came after February 24, 2022. That was the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion, and Kyiv responded by formally applying for accelerated membership on September 30 of that same year. The trend underneath is clear: Ukraine has been pushing for a concrete path into the alliance since before the war.
In 2019, the Verkhovna Rada amended the constitution to enshrine NATO membership as a strategic goal. That followed a 2017 law making the same objective official policy.
Watch this space — the paperwork is done, but the political will from NATO has been slower to match. At the 2023 Vilnius Summit, NATO allies agreed that Ukraine’s future is in the alliance. That was the headline.
But the fine print mattered: no invitation was issued. The alliance stated that conditions would be met when allies agree — language that left the door open but didn’t swing it wide.
What’s changing now? The 2024 Washington Summit was expected to clarify that path. But reports that President Zelensky was barred from speaking at the event may signal continued hesitation among member states.
That’s a telling detail — not a denial of membership, but a reluctance to move at Kyiv’s pace. The history here stretches back to 1991, when Ukraine joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. In 1994, it became the first Commonwealth of Independent States country to join NATO’s Partnership for Peace program.
A NATO-Ukraine Charter was signed in 1997, establishing the NATO-Ukraine Commission. At the 2008 Bucharest Summit, NATO declared that Ukraine and Georgia would become members, but no Membership Action Plan was offered.
After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine intensified cooperation. That was the inflection point — a pivot from aspirational partnership to urgent strategic necessity. The trend underneath is that Ukraine has done what it can on its end.
Constitutional changes, legislative groundwork, and battlefield sacrifices. The question now is whether NATO’s internal politics can catch up to its stated principles.
Watch this space. The Washington Summit was supposed to be the moment of clarity. Instead, it may be remembered as the moment hesitation became visible.
For Kyiv, the path to membership remains open — but the pace is still set by the alliance, not by Ukraine.
