MOSCOW, January 20. /TASS/. Not admitting Ukraine to NATO now does not mean that the ex-Soviet nation may not join the military alliance in the mid-term, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
"Ukraine not being admitted to NATO in the short term does not mean a refusal to admit it [to the alliance] in the medium term. From a dialectic viewpoint of developing international relations, this is just one point," the Russian presidential spokesman insisted.
However, Washington’s signals about its readiness to discuss the issue of not deploying armaments in Ukraine can be seen as a positive development, Peskov pointed out. "Indeed, Washington and NATO are signaling certain readiness to discuss some issues related to this situation, which is, perhaps, a positive fact," the Russian presidential spokesman said.
As the Kremlin press secretary pointed out, "all these things still have to be clarified" because Moscow’s stance on Ukraine’s non-admission to NATO is as fundamental for Russia as the issue of the non-deployment of strategic armaments on the territory of that country. "We will still have to find out the answers to these questions from those written statements that we are expecting in the coming days," Peskov stated.
At a press conference in the White House on January 19, US President Joe Biden said that an agreement could be reached with Russia on the issue of non-deploying strategic armaments in Ukraine.
He also pointed out that "the likelihood that Ukraine is going to join NATO in the near term is not very likely," considering that Kiev had "much more work to do in terms of democracy."