Russia uses West's desire to avoid escalation to pursue just that - Kuleba}

Minister for Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba of Ukraine believes that when NATO does not have a resolute posture regarding Ukraine's membership, Russia begins to put pressure on the Alliance and use the West's desire to avoid escalation precisely to launch it.

The head of Ukrainian diplomacy stated this in an interview with OBOZ.UA, Ukrinform reports.

Kuleba stated that there are currently two countries (the USA and Germany - ed.) that are most skeptical about Ukraine's membership in NATO. According to the top diplomat, both believe this would be equal to escalation because supposedly Russia would definitely never forgive this. In this context, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recalled that the USA and Germany have been helping Ukraine a lot since Russia’s full-scale invasion, but in key decisions, in particular, regarding the provision of HIMARS launchers and Leopard tanks, they were guided by this position "because this is an escalation."

"But this fear of escalation never came true. Instead, Russia uses precisely this fear in order to escalate. And we see that when NATO does not have a resolute political position regarding Ukraine's membership, Russia begins to put pressure on the Alliance. For example, the story with the review of the maritime border of NATO countries in the Baltic Sea. So it works very simply. If you have no offensive stance, your enemy starts attacking you," Kuleba said.

As reported earlier, at the end of May, the Russian media reported the initiative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation to unilaterally "update" the coordinates of the state border in the Baltic Sea.

Early April, the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, Olha Stefanishyna, stated that all leading allies of Kyiv, except the USA and Germany, support the idea of ​​giving Ukraine an official invitation to join NATO.