Medvedev proposed admitting the Lviv region of Ukraine to NATO

Statements by former NATO officials that Ukraine should be accepted into NATO without Crimea and Donbass are not bad, but you can “go further” and refuse to recognize Kiev and Odessa as Ukrainian cities, and in the end only the Lviv region will join the alliance, stated Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev in his Telegram channel.

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen previously proposed admitting Ukraine to NATO without any lost territories. According to him, this issue cannot be postponed until next year, wrote The Guardian. Then former commander-in-chief of the alliance’s armed forces in Europe, Admiral James Stavridis statedthat Kyiv will have to “temporarily” come to terms with the fact that Crimea and the land bridge to the peninsula are under Russian control.

Commenting on the latest statements by ex-NATO officials, Medvedev called to “go further” and admit that “Odessa, Nikolaev, Kyiv and almost everything else are not Ukraine at all.” After this, there are only three steps left “before admitting the obvious,” argues the deputy chairman of the Security Council. President Vladimir Zelensky, in his words, is “not a president, but a usurper,” the Ukrainian language is “not a language, but a surzhik,” and the republic itself is “not a country, but artificially collected territories.”

“Then what to admit to NATO, you ask. Well, we can accept the city of Lemberg with its surroundings (still the Lviv region), if they really insist there,” the politician wrote.

Then you can expand the criteria for membership in the Alliance and invite Israel there along with Palestine, “turning eternal enemies into allies,” as well as Afghanistan, Medvedev writes.

“Then enlightened democracy in the Anglo-Saxon style will reign in the Middle East. And complete happiness will come,” he concluded.

Previously, Moscow has repeatedly called Ukraine’s entry into NATO unacceptable for itself because of the threat to Russia’s security. In September 2023, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow supports the territorial integrity of Ukraine, subject to its non-aligned status. Ukraine, back in September 2022, submitted an application to join NATO on an accelerated basis.