British Ambassador Responds To Zaluzhny's Statement On Ukraine's NATO Membership
3- 11.08.2026, 10:30
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The diplomat cited two aspects.
Britain would like Ukraine to join NATO, although there is no consensus on this issue within the alliance. Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK Valeriy Zaluzhny also does not believe this will happen.
He stated this in an interview with RBC-Ukraine, the British Ambassador to Ukraine Neil Crompton stated this.
What Zaluzhny Said About NATO
Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, recently criticized the alliance. According to him, he has been hearing about Ukraine’s future NATO membership for 12 years, but he is convinced that it will never happen.
Zaluzhny also stated that Ukraine does not even need it, since NATO’s standards are outdated, and the alliance’s member states themselves will need a considerable amount of time to even come close to Russia’s current level.
Britain’s Position on Ukraine’s Accession
Krompton emphasized that NATO remains an important partner for Kyiv, although the issue of membership has a long history.
“I believe that NATO is an important partner for Ukraine. The question of Ukraine’s potential accession to NATO has a long history. The UK’s position is that we would like Ukraine to join, but there is no consensus within NATO as an alliance on this matter. Therefore, in my opinion, your question can be answered in two ways.”
The main condition is reliable security guarantees
The first aspect, according to the ambassador, concerns the lessons learned from the negotiation process.
“I believe that during last year’s negotiation process, everyone recognized that for a peace agreement to be sustainable, Ukrainians must believe they will no longer be attacked. And we have learned the lessons of Minsk—we must not allow the occupation of Crimea to escalate into another full-scale invasion,” said Crompton.
According to him, this is precisely why reliable Western security guarantees are key, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte expressed this best during his visit to Ukraine and his address to the Verkhovna Rada.
“I believe that the first element of any security guarantees is a strong Ukrainian Armed Forces and defense industry, which have long received financial support from Europe and other countries,” the ambassador added.
The diplomat considers this a given, since Ukraine has the largest and most experienced armed forces in Europe, and political support from Europe is evident.
“The second aspect he spoke about is the presence of European troops on the ground and aircraft in the air. These discussions are ongoing within the Coalition of the Resolute, and Rutte then mentioned support from the U.S. No negotiations are underway yet, but it will be clear to everyone that security guarantees must be part of this process,” Crompton noted.
What Crompton Thinks of Zaluzhny Himself
The second aspect of the ambassador’s response concerned Zaluzhny’s position as a diplomat specifically.
“There is a question regarding Ukraine’s relations with NATO, and, in my opinion, what Ambassador Zaluzhny said is interesting. He is a former career military officer and now a career diplomat. “Back when we first established the partnership between NATO and Ukraine, Ukraine sought to adopt NATO standards and ensure interoperability,” said Crompton.
“I hope that the natural course of events will be the strengthening of these partnership relations at the military level, as well as—as we are seeing—between various companies that want to learn from your combat experience, and also how your engineers and, in fact, your troops have learned to innovate and adapt within such short timeframes—the kind of tight deadlines we’ve been facing.”
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