alt Hacker News> But NATO was never going to expand to include Ukraine.
Agreed on all points but this. This is just factually wrong. Ukraine formally declared its intention to pursue NATO membership which was accepted by the NATO council.
The most significant early push occurred at the Bucharest Summit (April 2008). Ukraine (along with Georgia) requested a Membership Action Plan (MAP) - the standard preparatory program for aspiring members. NATO's declaration welcomed Ukraine's aspirations and stated that "these countries will become members of NATO". Ukraine's parliament repealed its non-bloc status and amended its constitution to enshrine irreversible pursuit of NATO (and EU) membership as a national goal. Then, NATO officially listed Ukraine as an aspiring member.
In the Vilnius Summit, NATO even declared that "Ukraine’s future is in NATO" and its path is "irreversible".
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Der Spiegel has a report detailing the efforts of Germany (particularly Merekel) and France (under Sarkozy) actively blocking any efforts to block Ukraine from joining NATO [1]:
> [2008] was the year that Ukraine was likely closer to becoming a member of the Western alliance than ever, before or since. United States President George W. Bush stood solidly behind Kyiv's accession. But the effort failed, as Zelenskyy made clear, due to the opposition of Merkel and Sarkozy – and an "absurd fear" of Russia. Because of this "miscalculation," the Ukrainian president continued, his country is facing "the most terrible war in Europe since World War II."
There were other European members who had objections or serious reservations.
> Ukraine's parliament repealed its non-bloc status and amended its constitution to enshrine irreversible pursuit of NATO
There was also a period under Yanukovych (a Russian puppet, to be clear) that repealed those efforts, which again changed after the revolution in 2014-2015.
The Vilnius Summit took place in 2023, a year into the war with Russia. As such, I consider it empty platitudes. For one thing, no country can join NATO with active border disputes. I don't see that ever happenign simply because Russia will start a border dispute to avoid that happening.
Even Zelensky recognized the plan as "absurd" [2].
[1]: https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/ukraine-how-merk...
[2]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/zelensky-calls-nato-plan-...
These were empty words of consolation after the allies decided not to invite Ukraine and Georgia into NATO.
Eventually, you will receive a million bucks from me. I am not giving you any timeline or conditions, but trust me, you are on an irreversible path toward that, I promise.