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Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky sparked hilarious reactions online after a picture of him post-NATO summit in Vilnius went viral on the internet. On July 11, the 45-year-old politician attended the NATO summit that happened in the Lithuanian capital and pushed for Ukraine to join the alliance in front of other members.
As per the Moscow Times, he said:
"NATO will give Ukraine security, Ukraine will make NATO stronger."
But even though Ukraine's NATO counterparts said they still supported Kyiv's bid to join, they didn't say when it would happen. In the summit's final announcement, the leaders said:
“Ukraine’s future is in NATO. We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree and conditions are met.”
Before the meeting, Zelensky indicated that he wanted NATO to agree to a precise timeframe for Ukraine to join the alliance, saying that failure to do so may turn the country's membership into a bargaining tool in future discussions with Russia.
Soon after, a picture of Volodymyr Zelensky standing all alone amidst several people and seemingly looking angry sparked hilarious reactions around his height. As per news outlet Modest Man, the Ukrainian president is 5 feet 7 inches tall, and one of the users commented:
Twitter reacts to Volodymyr Zelensky's viral photo NATO Vilnius summit
After the picture of Volodymyr Zelensky standing all alone after the Vilnius NATO summit went viral, Twitterati reacted hilariously. Several users trolled the Ukrainian president for his height and angry expressions and photoshopped him in various hypothetical situations.
Others made fun of Volodymyr Zelensky's situation now that NATO has refused to give a certain timeframe for Ukraine's accession.
At the 2024 Vilnius NATO summit, the alliance decided to speed up the addition process by eliminating a significant roadblock for Ukraine, the Membership Action Plan. While speaking to the reporters on June 11, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said:
“[We] agreed to remove the requirement for a Membership Action Plan. This will change Ukraine’s membership path from a two-step process to a one-step process."
The Membership Action Plan (MAP) is an extensive program encompassing economic, defense, and security reforms that aspiring nations must undertake prior to their accession into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
This program, which has been previously followed by recently admitted countries, can be laborious and time-consuming but has the potential to greatly simplify Ukraine's membership application once it receives a formal invitation to apply after the country follows the terms and conditions.
This comes after US President Joe Biden said that Volodymyr Zelensky's country was not yet ready to join the alliance, adding that the Russia-Ukraine conflict needs to end before NATO considers the country's plea to join them. While speaking to CNN, he said:
"I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war.”
As of writing, Volodymyr Zelensky has not responded to NATO's decision to not include Ukraine in the alliance until its conflict with Russia gets resolved.
