The UK defence chief, Ben Wallace, has hinted that Ukraine needs to say thank you more often to the west for its help after Volodymyr Zelensky’s frustration on Tuesday that his country had not been given a clear roadmap or criteria for joining Nato.
“People want to see a bit of gratitude,” Wallace said at a briefing on the sidelines of the Nato summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, when asked about the Ukrainian president’s comments that it was “absurd” for Kyiv to be told it would be welcome in the alliance but not given a date or exact conditions.
He said that sometimes the west had to give up its own weapons or persuade lawmakers in the US to support Ukraine. “You know, we’re not Amazon,” he said. “I told them that last year, when I drove 11 hours to be given a list.”
The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, also said that “the American people do deserve a degree of gratitude” for their willingness to provide Ukraine with military aid to defend itself against Russia’s aggression.
He said: “The United States of America has stepped up to provide an enormous amount of capacity to help ensure that Ukraine’s brave soldiers have the ammunition, air defence, the infantry, fighting vehicles, the mine clearing equipment and so much else to be able to effectively defend against Russia’s onslaught and to take territory back as well.”
Zelenskiy, speaking in Vilnius on Wednesday, said he understood that “Ukraine cannot join Nato when at war” but he wished there had been an invitation for Kyiv to join the alliance.
He welcomed the results of the Nato summit, especially the recognition that Ukraine did not need to follow a membership action plan, as well as the positive news on defence packages announced during the summit, but warned that, in the face of Russian invasion, this would be no substitute for eventual Nato membership.
Wallace said he understood Zelenskiy was speaking to his own public and that, despite his complaint on Tuesday, the final summit deal was a good one for Ukraine. He said there was an acceptance that “Ukraine belongs at Nato” and that amounted to an effective invitation for membership once the conflict had died down.
Britain, the US and global allies were due to unveil new security assurances for Ukraine on Wednesday. A declaration by the G7 industrialised countries “will set out how allies will support Ukraine over the coming years to end the war and deter and respond to any future attack”, a British government statement said.
In practice, this would come as bilateral agreements with Kyiv on long-term military and financial aid to keep Ukraine’s army and economy running. A White House official said the US would start such talks with Kyiv soon.
This was enough to draw a furious condemnation from the Kremlin, but not sufficient for Zelenskiy, who came to the Lithuanian capital seeking an invitation and clear timetable for Ukraine to join the alliance.
“The best guarantee for Ukraine is to be in Nato,” Zelenskiy said, expressing confidence that once the war is over Ukraine would be welcomed but warning that the G7 guarantees should be seen “not instead of Nato, but as security guarantees on our way to integration.”
Russia, which says Nato’s eastward expansion is an existential threat to its own security, swiftly lashed out at the military assistance.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy secretary of Russia’s powerful security council and an anti-western hawk, said increased military assistance to Ukraine from Nato was bringing a third world war a step closer.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that the step “will make Europe much more dangerous” for years and years. “By giving security guarantees to Ukraine, they are undermining the security of the Russian Federation,” he said.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, was sympathetic to Zelenskiy’s position but stressed the importance of the progress he said Ukraine had made at the summit held under tight security on Nato’s eastern flank, 16 months after Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.
Sullivan told CNN Ukraine could not join Nato right away because it would be “an inescapable fact” that the treaty’s mutual defence clause would mean that the allies would be immediately in a direct war with Russia.