Biden, Polish Leaders to Discuss Ukraine’s Potential Accession to NATO

Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg (L) gestures next to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during their joint press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, on April 20, 2023. Roman Pilipey/Getty Images

President Joe Biden will host Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the White House on March 12 to coordinate ahead of the upcoming NATO Summit and discuss the future admission of other countries, including Ukraine, to the Alliance.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the leaders “will reaffirm their unwavering support” for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion and coordinate ahead of the NATO Summit in Washington in July.

Mr. Duda said on March 5 during his visit to the site of NATO’s Steadfast Defender 2024 exercise in northern Poland that among the topics he would discuss with President Biden would be the future expansion of the alliance, including Ukraine’s accession and Polish arms purchases from the United States, according to a statement.

However, the condition for admission to NATO is that an aspiring country must resolve its territorial and international disputes, yet Ukraine has been fighting against Russia’s invasion, which recently entered its third year.

In May 2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at an event at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels: “We all agree that Ukraine will become a member of the alliance. ... We all agree that NATO’s door is open.”

However, referring to Ukraine, he noted that “to become a member in the midst of a war is not on the agenda.”

The Polish leaders’ meeting with the U.S. president also coincides with the 25th anniversary of Poland’s accession to NATO. After the visit, Mr. Duda will head to Belgium, where he will meet Mr. Stoltenberg, according to a statement by the Polish president’s office.

He also announced in his speech that he would convene the National Security Council on March 11 before his departure to the United States.

The council, an advisory body to the president, is composed of top government and security officials and party leaders and convenes when key national security issues need to be discussed, according to the statement.

According to a post on social media platform X by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said during a conference marking the 25th anniversary of Poland’s accession to NATO at the University of Warsaw on March 8: “By joining NATO, Poland overnight found itself on the other side of the tectonic fault that separates the relatively safe West from the dangerous and volatile East. Ukraine is trying to make the same crossing today and needs our support.”

At the heart of NATO’s founding treaty is the principle of collective defense, also known as “Article 5.” It stipulates that if any NATO ally is attacked, every other member of the Alliance treats this act as an attack on all NATO members and will take any necessary action to defend the attacked ally.

Ukraine’s Path to NATO

In response to Ukraine’s aspirations for NATO membership, the allies agreed at the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, that Ukraine would become a member of the alliance.

However, in 2010, the country pursued a nonalignment policy, which it terminated after the Russian annexation of Crimea and the takeover of the Donbas region by Russian-backed separatists in 2014.

In 2017, the Ukrainian parliament adopted legislation making the country’s membership in NATO a strategic objective and enshrined it in the Ukrainian constitution two years later.

The NATO summit in 2023 exempted Ukraine from the Membership Action Plan (MAP), which is a required step in the new member accession process. MAP was introduced to streamline the admission procedure after the first batch of former communist countries in Eastern Europe joined NATO.

U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO Julianne Smith said on Feb. 13 at a press briefing that the alliance has worked with Ukraine since the previous summit to help the country make necessary reforms “to move closer to Euro-Atlantic integration, both their integration with the European Union and with the NATO.”

“As for the summit this summer, I do not expect the Alliance to issue an invitation [to Ukraine] at this juncture,” Ms. Smith said.

Moscow opposes NATO enlargement. Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters after the NATO summit last year that admitting Ukraine to NATO “creates a threat to Russia’s security.”

“The threat of Ukraine’s accession to NATO is ... one of the reasons for the special military operation,” Mr. Putin said, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “This would not enhance Ukraine’s security in any way either. In general, it will make the world much more vulnerable and lead to more tensions in the international arena.”

Will NATO Send Troops to Ukraine?

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski speaks while meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, not pictured, at the State Department in Washington, on Feb. 26, 2024. Jacquelyn Martin / AP Photo

Mr. Sikorski also said at the anniversary event that “the presence of NATO forces in Ukraine is not unthinkable.”

“I appreciate the French President Emmanuel Macron’s initiative because it is about Putin being afraid, not us being afraid of Putin,” he said according to a post on X.

Mr. Macron has raised the possibility of EU states sending troops to Ukraine to fight against Russia’s invasion.

“There is no consensus at this stage ... to send troops on the ground,” Mr. Macron told reporters.

“Nothing should be excluded. We will do everything that we must so that Russia does not win.”

Mr. Macron made the remarks at a Feb. 26 meeting of European leaders in Paris. The event was convened to reiterate the EU’s continued support for Ukraine, which has recently suffered a series of losses on the battlefield.

The Kremlin has warned that if NATO sends combat troops, a direct conflict between the alliance and Russia would be inevitable. Mr. Putin said such a move would risk a global nuclear conflict.

Mr. Tusk was among those European leaders who initially ruled out sending troops to Ukraine after Mr. Macron’s remarks.

“Poland does not plan to send its troops to the territory of Ukraine,” he said.

Adam Morrow and The Associated Press contributed to this report.