MOSCOW, July 14. /TASS/. Ukraine’s admission to NATO will have catastrophic consequences for the alliance, and its members are fully aware of that, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told Russia’s Channel One late on Thursday.

"It was a huge mistake for anyone to think that Ukraine will be invited to the alliance and given a clear roadmap. By the way, not many people paid attention to the fact that all ministers were saying, with stone faces, that Ukraine will be admitted to NATO only after certain requirements are met," the deputy minister told the Big Game TV show.

"No one clarified what these requirements will be, but we know that the first requirement, [stipulated by] the official [NATO] document says that any kind of expansion should boost the security of the alliance. Clearly, Ukraine’s admission will have catastrophic consequences for European security, for Ukraine itself and also for the alliance," the diplomat continued.

"That is why I think that they will continue to dangle the carrot of EU and NATO membership. It is a tool of controlling Kiev’s processes, including on the battlefield and with respect to society building," he said.

Geopolitics over democracy

Grushko underscored that "NATO views itself as the most democratic club of nations in the world," quoting the alliance’s former Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen as describing the alliance as a "source of political legitimacy."

"As far as Ukraine is concerned, the truth is that this club of ‘democratic nations’ continues to sponsor a neo-Nazi - in fact, a terrorist - regime, whose official goal is to wipe out everything Russian on the territory of Ukraine, to deprive Ukrainians of their national, historical and cultural roots," he said. "After all, this is the regime that is waging a war against its own people."

NATO held its summit in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius on July 11-12. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said at the meeting that the bloc’s member states had taken three steps towards Ukraine, making a decision not to demand Ukraine implement its NATO Membership Action Plan, adopting a multi-year program of military assistance to Kiev and approving the establishment of a NATO-Ukraine Council. However, the final statement read out by Stoltenberg said that Ukraine would receive an invitation to join NATO once allies reached a consensus and all the conditions were met. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at a press conference expressed dissatisfaction with the decision, saying that the summit’s outcome was not ideal for Kiev as it had failed to get an invitation to join NATO.