Medvedev: NATO May Never Accept Ukraine, Bloc Too Afraid to Voice Aloud

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Ukraine might never join NATO, and the alliance is afraid to say it out loud, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.

"Everything is as we thought: the Action Plan for Ukraine's membership in the Alliance (MAP) is to be canceled. [The goal] is to make it [accession] kind of faster …[the accession] might never happen. And this is something that the realists in the alliance are afraid to say out loud," Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel.

The official also called NATO’s intention to increase military assistance to Ukraine "a dead end in fact."

"The World War Three is getting closer," Medvedev said.

The remarks come as Ukraine's potential NATO membership has remained a hot topic amid Russia's special military operation, even more so with the military bloc's recently kicked off Vilnius summit.

In fact, talk of the anticipated membership hit a new level after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg commented during the start of the summit that there was no point in discussing the move if the Kiev regime failed to come out on top from hostilities.

The commentary largely falls in line with NATO's official stance that there is no official timeline for Ukraine's admittance to the military alliance, and that it would only be issued an invitation once all members agree on the terms and Ukraine makes a concerted effort to meet them.