Budanov names true reason Russia will block Ukraine’s NATO membership

The Kremlin will treat Ukraine’s potential NATO membership as a key lever of pressure and the primary justification for its aggression. Russia will continue to formally insist on Kyiv’s non-aligned status.

Head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, Kyrylo Budanov said this while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

He said the argument of defending against NATO was central to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, when Moscow claimed it was preventing NATO forces from being deployed to the peninsula. The same rationale was later used, albeit less intensively, to justify the war in eastern Ukraine.

«Will Russia insist that Ukraine does not become a member of NATO? It definitely will. What will this lead to? We will see. This has been the most persistent argument used for 12 years to justify the invasion of Ukraine. In 2022, one of the main reasons cited was the claim that Russia was saving itself from NATO’s expansion eastward. In Russia’s logic, Ukraine’s accession represents an ideological and existential threat to the existence of the Russian Federation, ” Budanov said.

Kyrylo Budanov concluded that the struggle for Ukraine’s right to independently choose its security alliances remains one of the key challenges in confronting the aggressor.