Former Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance Anders Fogh Rasmussen allowed the admission of Ukraine to NATO "in parts". At the same time, much depends on Kyiv, he said in an interview with Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND).
Rasmussen was asked if he considered it possible that only Western Ukraine, for example, would be included in the bloc.
Of course, all this is difficult, and in the end everything depends on the decisions of Ukraine, but, in any case, it is not impossible.
- said the ex-secretary general.
He noted that even such an admission of Ukraine to NATO can have a stabilizing effect on the whole of Europe. Rasmussen considers it correct to compare the admission of Ukraine to the military bloc “in parts” with the admission of West Germany to the North Atlantic Alliance, which took place in 1955.
For example, it could be agreed that assistance obligations under Article Five of the NATO Treaty would only be met in the event of an attack on those parts of Ukrainian territory where the government in Kiev currently exercises de facto jurisdiction
— said the Danish politician.
According to him, now there is a process of discussing possible options for Ukraine's entry into NATO. He called it a "tragic mistake" to delay such a move, as the alliance doesn't care about Russian President Vladimir Putin's red lines.
Rasmussen traveled last month to the capitals of NATO member countries, where he campaigned for the adoption of "concrete steps" on the Ukrainian issue. In his opinion, for the North Atlantic Alliance to wait for the end of hostilities to make a decision on Kyiv would be "a strategic mistake with dangerous consequences." Previously, US President Joe Biden ruled out Ukraine's entry into NATO before the end of the conflict. He assured that he would like to avoid a situation in which the entire alliance "would be at war" with Moscow.