Former US Ambassador to NATO Daalder: Ukraine can become a NATO member even with temporarily occupied territories

Exclusive interview of former US Ambassador to NATO (2009-2013) Ivo Daalder, who currently CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, to Interfax-Ukraine

Daalder is a European security specialist who served on the US National Security Council during the administration of President Bill Clinton and was one of President Barack Obama's foreign policy advisers during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Text: Iryna Somer

Mr. Ambassador, not so long ago you said that when we talk about Ukraine's membership in NATO, we are talking not about years, but about months. Why do you think so?

I think there's been a change. NATO summit in Vilnius of itself had a positive impact, particularly on the president of the United States Joe Biden, and more generally, on bringing the idea of Ukrainian membership in NATO from the theoretical into the practical, and a greater understanding that ultimately this conflict will not end until there is certainty of where Ukraine's future lies.

After all, this conflict is not only about not about territory, but it's really about Ukraine's future. It's about who gets to decide Ukraine's future - do its neighbours or do the people in Ukraine get to decide through their political processes? And on that, there is always been theoretical clarity in the sense that yes NATO and yes all the countries have supported Ukraine's right in theory to choose its own alliances, to decide where it belongs, but in practice hasn't been willing to pay the price that it might take for Ukraine to in fact act upon its desires.

The war changed this because of how Ukraine is standing up for its freedom, its independence, the support that it has been getting from other countries, and the growing realization that the war