{"id":26820,"date":"2026-08-04T03:42:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T22:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26820"},"modified":"2026-08-04T03:42:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T22:42:29","slug":"former-ukrainian-top-commander-sees-no-prospect-of-kyiv-joining-nato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26820","title":{"rendered":"Former Ukrainian top commander sees no prospect of Kyiv joining NATO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\" data-body-type=\"bodyblocks\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Aug 3 (Reuters) &#8211; Ukraine&#8217;s former top military commander, now ambassador to Britain, was quoted as saying on Monday that \u200cthere was no prospect of the country joining NATO, an \u200caspiration entrenched in the constitution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Valery Zaluzhnyi, quoted by media outlet Evropeiska Pravda, told a \u200bmeeting of Ukrainian ambassadors that Ukraine in no way met the military standards needed to join the alliance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I know NATO really well. For about 12 years, I personally worked on making sure we met NATO \u200cstandards, and every year \u2060I heard tales about how we would join NATO any day now,&#8221; Evropeiska Pravda quoted him as \u2060telling the meeting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Unfortunately, we will never actually join.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Zaluzhnyi said it was &#8220;impossible with the level of development that the Armed Forces of Ukraine have \u2026 to \u200bjoin an \u200borganisation guided by World War \u200bII doctrines&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Ukraine needed the technology &#8220;already \u200cin use in NATO member-states, including anti-missile defence, space capabilities etc&#8221;, he was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Ukraine has enshrined in its constitution a strategic goal of membership of NATO and the European Union. It has, however, acknowledged that currently it would not be welcomed into NATO \u200cby all its members.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Zaluzhnyi was dismissed \u200bas Ukraine&#8217;s top commander last year over \u200bdifferences with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy \u200bon conducting the war with Russia, now well \u200cinto its fifth year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Opinion surveys on \u200bvoter trust put \u200bhim roughly on a par with Zelenskiy and with former Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, sacked as defence minister last month. \u200bZaluzhnyi&#8217;s successor as top \u200ccommander was also dismissed last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Russia has rejected out of \u200bhand any notion of Ukrainian membership of NATO.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting by \u200bRon Popeski; Editing by Stephen Coates)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aug 3 (Reuters) &#8211; Ukraine&#8217;s former top military commander, now ambassador to Britain, was quoted as saying on Monday that \u200cthere was no prospect of the country joining NATO, an \u200caspiration entrenched in the constitution. Valery Zaluzhnyi, quoted by media outlet Evropeiska Pravda, told a \u200bmeeting of Ukrainian ambassadors that Ukraine in no way met&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/8111a7af2b4b8e3ab45478a9a0bdc4691eeb2494edd1e46de971eecfa21ee933\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefill_w800_h534;quality_80;format_webp\/https:%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Freuters.com%2F1b12d284fb2b17160cc63bd39654b761","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}