{"id":1475750,"date":"2024-07-07T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1475750"},"modified":"2024-07-07T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-07T15:00:00","slug":"nato-to-unveil-bridge-to-membership-for-ukraine-us-official","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/nato-to-unveil-bridge-to-membership-for-ukraine-us-official\/1475750\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO To Unveil ‘Bridge To Membership’ For Ukraine: US Official"},"content":{"rendered":"

NATO To Unveil ‘Bridge To Membership’ For Ukraine: US Official<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times<\/a> (emphasis ours),<\/em><\/p>\n

A NATO flag is displayed at the Alliance headquarters ahead of a NATO Defense Ministers meeting, in Brussels, on Oct. 21, 2021. (Pascal Rossignol\/Reuters)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

NATO will unveil a plan to help prepare Ukraine to assume the responsibilities of membership in the alliance during its annual summit in Washington, next week.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The deliverable is not a plan for membership outright, but will consist of \u201cstanding up an entire command\u201d to ensure Ukraine can fully contribute to NATO in the event it does join, a senior Biden administration official told reporters on July 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllies will reaffirm that Ukraine\u2019s future is in NATO [and] will make significant new announcements about how we\u2019re increasing NATO\u2019s military, political, and financial support for Ukraine<\/strong>,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n

The effort is part of a larger \u201cbridge to membership\u201d which is designed to help Ukraine assume military responsibilities within NATO \u201con day one\u201d of its membership.<\/p>\n

Though Ukraine has sought membership in the defensive alliance for some time, it is unlikely to be approved anytime soon, as membership is contingent upon a unanimous vote of all member states and requires new member states to meet certain standards of governance and territorial integrity.<\/p>\n

Preventing Ukraine from joining NATO has also been a key war aim of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Mr. Putin has said that the objectives of the conflict are to demilitarize Ukraine and compel its neutrality in international affairs.<\/p>\n

The U.S. official, however, quoted President Joe Biden, who previously said that Ukraine\u2019s membership in NATO was a question of when rather than if.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As such, the official said, the United States and many of its allies will be working next week to \u201cinstitutionalize\u201d Ukraine\u2019s military ties to NATO through 20\u201330 bilateral security agreements that would be announced by Ukraine and various NATO member states.<\/p>\n

The United States will also announce a key deliverable, the official said, to \u201chelp Ukraine with training coordination, equipment coordination, logistics, [and] support development.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will have a political overlay to it, which will focus on defense, institution building, and interoperability with NATO, and it’ll have a financial pledge associated with it as well.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

Establishing a robust institutional framework to help fund Ukraine\u2019s security needs has become a key goal of the Biden administration and its allies, who have said that a second Trump administration could threaten the flow of weapons to embattled Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Such fears largely stem from former President Donald Trump\u2019s critique of NATO, including that European partners in the alliance do not meet their financial obligations.<\/p>\n

That situation has shifted dramatically in recent years, however. A fact that the official was quick to point out.<\/p>\n

Since the beginning of the Biden administration, the official said, the number of NATO nations spending at least two percent of their GDP on defense has risen sharply from nine to 23.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat direction of travel is significant,<\/strong>\u201d the official said. \u201cAnd … to put a dollar figure on it, just since 2020 NATO collectively has spent an additional $180 billion on a yearly basis.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

NATO will convene its 75th annual summit on July 9.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSun, 07\/07\/2024 – 07:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/nato-unveil-bridge-membership-ukraine-us-official<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NATO To Unveil ‘Bridge To Membership’ For Ukraine: US Official Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), A NATO flag is displayed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1475751,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1475750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-6bUq","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2024\/07\/image_802858029-zj8LF7.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1475750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1475751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1475750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1475750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1475750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}