Ukraine's ambassador to the UK, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said Ukraine will "never" join NATO and urged Kyiv to pursue alternative security arrangements instead.
Ukraine's ambassador to the United Kingdom and former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces (2021–2024), Valerii Zaluzhnyi, told a gathering of Ukrainian ambassadors in Kyiv on August 3–4 that Ukraine will "never" join NATO — despite membership in the alliance being enshrined as a strategic goal in Ukraine's constitution. He said it is impossible for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, at their current level of development, to join an organization guided by World War II-era doctrines.
Zaluzhnyi called twelve years of pursuing NATO integration "fairytales" and urged Kyiv to instead build alternative security arrangements — including the idea of a "European military security bloc" and an expanded Ukrainian role in the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF). Volunteers Support Ukraine follows public discussions of the country's future security guarantees closely, since they will shape how safe Ukrainians feel once active fighting ends.
The statement came during Ukraine's annual conference of ambassadors in Kyiv, which this year opened with diplomats touring a site in the capital's Lukianivka district damaged by a Russian strike — a stark reminder of why the question of security guarantees remains so pressing.
The comments from Zaluzhnyi — one of the most influential figures in Ukraine's military during 2021–2024 — immediately drew wide media attention, since they contradict the Presidential Office's official position, which has not formally abandoned the goal of NATO membership. Volunteers Support Ukraine does not take a political position on the matter, but follows the debate closely, since it directly concerns the future security environment in which volunteer and humanitarian organizations will operate.
Volunteers Support Ukraine continues to help people affected by the war in whatever way its available resources allow, regardless of which path Ukraine ultimately takes toward long-term security guarantees.
