Should Ukraine join Nato?

We don’t agree that Nato membership for Ukraine would provoke a conflict with Russia

On 8 July, the eve of Nato’s 75th anniversary summit, a Russian missile struck Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital, destroying, among other sections, its cancer center, hematology lab and surgical transplant unit. Russia launched 40 missiles at cities across Ukraine that day, killing more than 40 people, wounding numerous others, and demonstrating yet again that there are no legal, political or moral lines it won’t cross in its determination to conquer Ukraine.

As Ukrainian doctors, rescue workers and volunteers evacuated child patients, many of them still in hospital gowns and attached to IVs, from the bombed-out hospital, heads of state from Nato’s 32 member countries arrived in Washington DC to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine and how to strengthen Ukraine’s defense. Although they affirmed that “Ukraine’s future is in Nato,” and that the country’s path to the alliance is “irreversible”, Ukraine’s potential membership was once again deferred: the Washington summit declaration stated that an invitation for Ukraine to join Nato would come “when Allies agree, and conditions are met”.