OREANDA-NEWS Belgian Defense Minister Theo Franken, stating on the social network X about the Russian "information war" against Europe, wrote that Ukraine allegedly "did not have the slightest chance" to join NATO before the start of its military operation in February 2022, although this statement contradicts official NATO statements from 2008 confirming the opposite.

At the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008, it was announced that Ukraine and Georgia would become NATO members. This statement has been repeatedly confirmed, in particular at the Brussels summit in June 2021, where the statement of the heads of NATO states stated: "We confirm the decision that Ukraine will become a member of NATO."

"Thus, Russia has successfully disseminated various theses among our population... Another classic thesis is the accusation that the "expansionism" of NATO and the EU caused their aggressive war in Ukraine, while Ukraine had no chance of joining NATO and the EU before the war," Franken writes.