Former Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen says that it is time for the alliance to set out an action plan to realize its promise on the membership of Georgia and Ukraine given during the 2008 Bucharest summit. 

“We promised both Georgia and Ukraine seats at the NATO table in 2008, and it’s time we set out an action plan to realize our promise. If necessary, we can do this with a proviso stating that NATO’s Article 5 only covers the territory under the control of Kyiv and Tbilisi, but NATO cannot have an open-door policy on enlargement in which it continues to allow Putin to act as the doorman,” Rasmussen said in his story for Politico. 

He also said that ‘we should end Putin’s de facto veto on Ukraine and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations, achieved by fomenting low-level conflicts in these countries, the intensity of which he turns up and down to suit his agenda.’  “Will Putin invade Ukraine? Only he really knows. But if he does, we must send meaningful military aid to Ukraine and launch economic sanctions that will cripple the Russian economy, including canceling the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline,” Rasmussen says. 

NATO officials have recently stated that the alliance remains open for Georgia and Ukraine. However, they also said that the alliance does not discuss the membership of the countries with its collective defense article covering only the central-government-controlled territories.