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No workarounds available for Ukraine to join NATO, Russian diplomat says

The Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation noted that in order to join the alliance, any country needs to go through several phases, the last of which is an “action plan” for membership

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko Russian Foreign Ministry/TASS

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko

© Russian Foreign Ministry/TASS

MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. There are no workarounds to join NATO available for any country, including Ukraine, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said in an interview with the Zvezda television channel.

In a video recording of the interview published on the Telegram channel of the Russian Foreign Ministry, he said: "There are no workarounds for joining NATO."

Commenting on the prospects of discussing Ukraine’s potential accession to NATO at a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers in Bucharest coming in late November, Grushko said that any country must undergo several stages before joining the alliance, with the membership "action plan" being the final one. According to Grushko, an exception was made for Sweden and Finland there since the two Nordic countries had been integrated into the alliance years ago, and the recent decision was simply a political one. The senior Russian diplomat described that as irrational though.

The 30 NATO foreign ministers will gather in the capital of Romania for a two-day meeting on November 29-30.

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