Biden envoy: Ukraine's future in NATO now in Trump's hands

A senior aide to President Biden said that the administration will leave up to the incoming Trump administration the next steps on Ukraine’s path to NATO membership, despite internal discussions on whether to push for the alliance to issue an invitation for Kyiv in the lame-duck session.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for an immediate invitation to NATO as a key part of his “victory plan,” and he has said an invite to the alliance could end the hot stage of the war.

But Michael Carpenter, special assistant to Biden and senior director for Europe at the National Security Council, said any decision for an invitation is now firmly in the hands of the incoming Trump administration.

“They will need to figure out how to make this work," he said in conversation with The Hill at the Atlantic Council. "Right now we don’t have 32 allies that are agreed, or there’s consensus within the alliance to offer an invitation. We have agreement that, at some point, Ukraine will be in NATO."

The Biden administration pushing for an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO was highly unlikely, still Carpenter's remarks mark the clearest answer on the matter in the final weeks of the president's term.

President-elect Trump’s pick for special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, has proposed putting off NATO membership for Ukraine as a carrot to bring Russia to peace talks.

But Carpenter argued in favor of Ukraine’s eventual accession to the alliance, saying NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense pact is the best security guarantee to guard Ukraine against any renewed Russian aggression.

“The sooner we can get there the better, but it’s a matter of political will and political unity,” he said, pointing to the 32 members of the alliance.

Carpenter said he has yet to be in touch with the Trump transition team and called for the conversations to take place “as soon as possible.”

“In my area, which is Europe, there is a whole list of things we need to cover. These vulnerabilities are extensive and the geopolitics now are changing so quickly, look at what happened in Syria over the past two weeks,” he said, referring to the lightning rebel offensive that ended the more than 50-year, brutal rule of the Assad family.

“It’s really, exceptionally dramatic. We hope we can roll up our sleeves and have those conversations as soon as possible.”

Updated at 8:39 p.m.

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