Ukraine is still too corrupt to join NATO

 

The NATO Summit Is On July 9, But Zelensky Is Already Angry

Another year of war and another NATO summit, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is still not going to get the NATO membership Ukrainians are fighting and dying for. At last year’s NATO summit, Zelensky was offered only “an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met.”

“Ukraine isn’t ready for NATO membership,” U.S. President Joe Biden said because, as he told CNN, there are “qualifications that need to be met, including democratization.”

Zelensky was outraged: “It’s unprecedented and absurd when time frame is not set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership. While at the same time vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine.”

At this year’s NATO summit, to be held in Washington from July 9-11, corruption reform will be added to democratic reform. Ukraine will neither be offered membership in NATO nor a timeline to membership. Instead, they will be told that they are still too corrupt to join NATO.

According to a senior official in the State Department, although the U.S. has to “applaud everything that Ukraine has done in the name of reforms over the last two-plus years… we want to talk about additional steps that need to be taken, particularly in the area of anti-corruption.” In a recent interview with TIME, Biden cited “significant corruption” for not being “prepared to support the NATOization of Ukraine.”

Instead of being given membership, Ukraine will be given “a list of reforms it will be expected to carry out before its membership ambitions can be realized.” — AntiWar.com

Our Take: "At this year’s NATO summit, to be held in Washington from July 9-11, corruption reform will be added to democratic reform. Ukraine will neither be offered membership in NATO nor a timeline to membership. Instead, they will be told that they are still too corrupt to join NATO."

Hahahahaha... this is rich.

You mean the guy who is laundering and embezzling billions of American tax dollars—sending his wife around the world to purchase multi-million dollar cars and homes—kidnapping civilians off the street and forcing them to serve in his military, conscripting violent inmates from Ukrainian prisons, and recruiting an international consortium of ruthless mercenaries who are engaging in horrific war crimes, is outraged that he is being accused of being "too corrupt" to join the Fourth Reich?

I'm sure I don't have to explain to this audience that under Article Five of the NATO charter, should Ukraine be allowed to join before this war with Russia is resolved, America and the rest of NATO will be automatically at war with Russia. (Not that Putin doesn't already consider us at war with him.)

I look forward to seeing the actor throw a cocaine-fueled temper tantrum at today's summit, while wearing one of those track suits that Eastern Europeans are always sporting in Hollywood films. Zelensky is absolutely a caricature of that stereotype, and I have to applaud whoever made the decision to cast him in this role. What a performance.

The public is going to hate these people before this is all over, and I think that is the point. — GhostofBasedPatrickHenry