The US is willing to offer Kiev a sort of security arrangement currently offered to Israel instead of membership in NATO, President Joe Biden told CNN in an interview previewed on Friday.
“I don’t think it’s ready for membership in NATO,” Biden said of Ukraine. “I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war.”
Membership in the US-led military bloc means the commitment to defend all of its territory, so “if the war is going on, then we’re all in a war. We’re at war with Russia, if that were the case,” Biden told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.
Ukraine has demanded an invitation from NATO, or at least an announcement of when it might be ready to bring it on board, at the upcoming summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. The octogenarian US president said it was “premature” to call for a vote right now and described NATO as “a process that takes some time” and involves reforms such as democratization. The US needs to present a “rational path” for Ukraine to qualify for membership, Biden said.