“President Biden Told Me: No, You Will Not Be in NATO.”

On December 18, speaking at the EU summit, Zelensky said that former US President Biden had ruled out Ukraine’s accession to NATO before the war.

“I raised this issue absolutely directly. Could Ukraine be in NATO? Because this is what we want, and we understand that these are real security guarantees. This was before the war. President Biden told me: no, you will not be in NATO. I returned to this question every time, and for some people in the White House it even prompted a smile.”

After the start of Russia’s aggression, Ukraine consistently returned to a course of Euro-Atlantic integration. In December 2014, the Verkhovna Rada repealed the non-aligned status introduced under Viktor Yanukovych, formally abandoning the policy of “military neutrality.” The move sent a political signal that Kyiv was renewing its drive toward closer ties with NATO, but it was not accompanied by a referendum or a formal application for membership. In 2017, parliament enshrined the goal of joining NATO and the EU as a foreign-policy priority in sectoral legislation, and the president signed the relevant amendments.

A pivotal milestone came on February 7, 2019, when the Verkhovna Rada enshrined Ukraine’s course toward membership in NATO and the European Union in the Constitution, amending the preamble and a number of articles defining the powers of parliament, the president, and the government. This decision, too, was taken exclusively through a parliamentary vote, without the issue being put to a nationwide public discussion. After the launch of Russia’s full-scale war in 2022, Ukraine submitted an application for accelerated accession to NATO, but the alliance limited itself to political declarations about Ukraine’s “future in NATO,” stopping short of issuing a formal invitation and retaining the formula that requires unanimous consent among allies and the fulfillment of specified conditions. In the years that followed, NATO’s rhetoric shifted toward support for Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to membership, but without any concrete timelines. At the same time, international negotiations entertained the possibility that Kyiv might forgo the formal goal of joining NATO in exchange for robust security guarantees—underscoring that the constitutionally закрепленный course remains a political lodestar rather than a guarantee of automatic or irreversible accession.