Ukraine is struggling to break through to NATO

Currently, the most serious argument against Ukraine's membership in NATO is the difficulty in accepting a country that is under attack by Russia, and which does not control all its territory. However, there are ways to deal with it – explains Ian Bond in an analysis of the London-based Centre for European Reform. Bond cites the example of West Germany, which joined NATO in 1955 when, at least legally, it treated its western border as unregulated.

...Rapid NATO membership would not in itself prevent Russia from continuing its assault on Ukraine, but the alliance, Bond explains, would be able to deploy air defense forces, logistical support to Ukraine, and declare to the Kremlin that an attack by Russian forces on the Kiev-administered part of Ukraine would trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty. It's just that the West, led by the USA, now has no appetite for such far-reaching solutions.

"In many ways, NATO has come a long way since the Bucharest summit, but when it comes to understanding how to stabilize the part of Eastern Europe threatened by Russian imperialism, it has hardly moved at all," Bond writes.