The presidents of nine countries in Central and Eastern Europe showed their support for Ukraine by defending its membership of the Atlantic Alliance, by urging the remaining allies to “substantially increase military aid” to the invaded country and by rejecting the Russian attempt to annex territory. On the ground, the Ukrainian army’s advances in the east were joined by another, in the Kherson region. Meanwhile, Pope Francis has begged Vladimir Putin to stop the war and Volodymyr Zelensky to be receptive to a peace proposal.
The heads of state of nine NATO countries – Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania – declared that they could not “keep silent in the face of the flagrant violation of international law by the Russian Federation” , having therefore signed a text in which they began by reiterating their support for Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity and supported the intention expressed on Friday by the Ukrainian president for his country to join the alliance which, at the moment, has 30 member states. “We do not and will never recognize Russian attempts to annex any Ukrainian territory. We strongly support the decision of the NATO Summit in Bucharest in 2008 concerning the future membership of Ukraine.”
At that summit, NATO members welcomed the aspirations of Ukraine and Georgia, but did not offer a clear timetable for the two countries’ accession. On Friday, the organization’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, preferred to underline the importance of continued support for Ukraine than to comment on Zelensky’s initiative in calling for his country’s urgent accession to NATO. The heads of diplomacy from the United States and Canada expressed support for Kiev’s claim, but in the normal way, as did Sweden and Finland (awaiting ratification by the parliaments of Hungary and Turkey).
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