The Trump administration caused a shock on both sides of the Atlantic last week by claiming that North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership for Ukraine is not "a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement" for the war there. European countries said that they were still committed to having Ukraine in NATO. European Union chief diplomat Kaja Kallas said today that there should be no agreement "about Ukraine without Ukraine."
Former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton even claimed that President Donald Trump has "effectively surrendered" to Russian demands. If so, it's a surrender that former President Joe Biden reportedly made before the war even began. While publicly insisting on NATO's "open door" policy, and refusing to negotiate with Russia on the issue, Biden privately told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2021 that Ukraine wouldn't join the alliance, Zelenskyy revealed on Friday.
"My first phone call with President Biden and my first question, will we be in NATO? He said, no, no. And I said, we will see," Zelenskyy said at the Munich Security Conference in Germany last week, referring to his first conversation with Biden in April 2021. "But to be very honest, United States, they never saw us in NATO. They just spoke about it. But they really didn't want us in NATO. It's true."
