Haley says Biden ‘made Putin’s day’ with resistance to Ukraine’s NATO bid

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley criticized President Biden’s resistance to NATO membership for Ukraine Tuesday, suggesting that the move benefits Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I mean, I think he just made Putin’s day,” she said in an interview with Fox News. “Look at what is happening. They are missing the exact strategy that could end this war.” 

“If you just look at NATO, and I know because I dealt with them at the United Nations, they can get weak in the knees and you have to stiffen their spine. I had to do it many times at the UN,” Haley, who previously served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, added. “The key is there is no reason Ukraine should not be part of NATO.”

As Biden attends the NATO summit in Lithuania this week, he and his administration have made clear that Ukrainian membership in the alliance is still far off.

The president said in an interview with CNN last week that Ukraine is not “ready” for NATO membership, adding that there is not currently “unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war.”

White House national security spokesman John Kirby also told CNN Tuesday that NATO membership for Ukraine isn’t likely in the “immediate future” because it would put the alliance at war with Russia.

While NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg affirmed the alliance’s plans to eventually grant Kyiv membership “when conditions are met,” he declined to provide a specific timeline for the process Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the lack of “readiness” to invite his country to join NATO amid the war with Russia, arguing that it provides Moscow with “motivation to continue its terror.”

“This means that a window of opportunity is being left to bargain Ukraine’s membership in NATO in negotiations with Russia,” Zelensky said. “And for Russia, this means motivation to continue its terror.”

“It’s unprecedented and absurd when timeframe is not set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership, while at the same time vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine,” the Ukrainian president added.