Russian President Vladimir Putin made a "bad bet" in launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has told a forum on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, shortly after allied nations agreed that "Ukraine will become a member of NATO."
Sullivan told a NATO Public Forum session on Wednesday morning that the landmark summit in Vilnius has sent a strong message of unity to a Kremlin still hoping for cracks in Western support for Ukraine—despite divisive debates over allied military spending and bloc expansion.
"President [Joe] Biden has really stressed the importance of unity in the alliance in the face of Russia's aggression," Sullivan said. "And he has noted many times that President Putin was betting that NATO unity would crack, that the alliance would wither, that divisions would be exposed. And that has been a bad bet for the 505 days of the war. And we believe that will continue to be a bad bet."
The summit in Vilnius—which will end on Wednesday afternoon—has provided a platform for key NATO decisions that will likely rankle the Kremlin. Newsweek has contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry by email to request comment.
Sweden is expected to soon join the bloc after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan dropped his long-held opposition on Monday; Ukraine has again been acknowledged as a future member state; military spending targets have been reemphasized; and significant bilateral security deals between Ukraine and the U.S, U.K, Germany, and France are progressing.
"Unity doesn't mean every ally sees every issue exactly the same way," Sullivan said Wednesday. "What it means is that we can come together from somewhat different tactical perspectives to join in a common strategic vision and strategic approaches."
American support for Ukraine—which will be underscored in a meeting between Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky in Vilnius on Wednesday—will continue "for as long as it takes," Sullivan 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, the air defense, 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."
Sullivan dismissed Ukrainian frustration with NATO's communiqué, in which a lack of a concrete timeline for Kyiv's alliance accession was branded as "absurd" by Zelensky on Tuesday. The alliance will waive the Membership Action Plan traditionally required for aspirant nations, but it now seems clear that member states will not extend an official invitation to Kyiv while fighting with Russian forces continues.
"I think there was broad consensus in the alliance that bringing Ukraine into NATO now, in the middle of the war, would mean NATO would be a war with Russia," Sullivan said. "And I think, across the alliance, there was a view that NATO ending up in a war with Russia at this moment doesn't make sense."
Sullivan added that Ukraine has "more steps to take" in the democratic and security reforms demanded of nations wishing to join the alliance.
The continued NATO reluctance to admit Ukraine has prompted some speculation that Western nations may still be willing to make concessions to Moscow in exchange for peace. Publicly, NATO leaders have consistently refused to abandon the alliance's open-door policy that would allow for Kyiv's future membership.
But some Ukrainian officials have expressed their fear of a repeat of the Western role in the failed Minsk agreements that aimed to end fighting between Kyiv and Kremlin-aligned separatists—organized and armed by Moscow, and later supported by regular Russian forces—in the eastern Donbas region following Russia's 2014 invasion of Crimea.
"There has been a lot of conspiracy theorizing that simply is not based on any reality whatsoever," Sullivan said to the suggestion that NATO and the U.S. might be willing to deny Kyiv alliance accession to secure a peace deal.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
David Brennan is Newsweek's Diplomatic Correspondent covering world politics and conflicts from London with a focus on NATO, the European ... Read more
