Czech President Believes Ukraine Can Join NATO While Partially Occupied

Czech President Petr Pavel believes that Ukraine’s NATO accession should not depend on regaining full control over all its territory.

“If there is a demarcation, even of some administrative border, then we will be able to recognize this administrative border as a temporary state border and allow Ukraine to join NATO with the territory it will control at that moment,” he explained.

Pavel mentioned an example of Germany which joined the Alliance in 1955, even though a part of its territory was occupied by the Soviet Union until 1990.

“So I think that there is both a technical and a legal decision which will allow Ukraine to join NATO without dragging it into the conflict with the Russian Federation,” Pavel said, adding that it would only be possible after the start of negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow.

He stressed that democratic countries should treat Russia-occupied territories of Ukraine only as temporarily occupied.

The July NATO summit in Washington ended with the launch of the Ukraine Compact, a security framework signed by 32 allies. The countries affirmed Kyiv’s “irreversible” path toward membership, though Ukraine did not receive any definitive news about its future accession.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has repeatedly called on partners to issue a membership invitation to Kyiv, said that Ukraine will join NATO only after Russia’s full-scale war ends.

Pavel expects that Ukraine and Russia could conclude an agreement “in the coming years,” which potentially could mean that some of Ukraine’s territories may be under Russia’s occupation, but the West should consider these territories only as “temporary occupied,” the media outlet reported.

In March, the Czech president said that Russia “has no right” to set conditions for peace in Ukraine. According to Pavel, instead of negotiations, the war would likely end with one side’s clear military victory or both sides’ eventual exhaustion.

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