The head of the Ministry of Defense of Great Britain, Ben Wallace, who expressed his desire to become the next Secretary General of NATO, does not believe that Ukraine will be able to join the Alliance in the near future.

 He stated this in an interview with The Washington Post.

 Answering questions about Ukraine's prospects for joining NATO, Wallace pointed to existing disagreements regarding Kyiv's path to the Alliance. He noted that NATO, like the EU, should not repeat the mistakes of the past by making excessive promises to applicants such as Ukraine.

 "We have to be realistic and say: "This will not happen in Vilnius; it's not going to happen anytime soon," Wallace said, referring to the NATO leaders' summit scheduled for July.

 "But what can those states do that want to be more future-oriented to help Ukraine and provide it with not 100 percent, but similar to that provided by NATO?" - asked the head of the Ministry of Defense of Britain.

 Wallace said a number of countries are willing to enter into bilateral or multilateral "mutual defense pacts" with Ukraine and commit to long-term plans to develop the country's military capabilities to ensure that future incursions into Ukraine are costly to Russia or anyone else.

 According to Wallace, such bilateral agreements can be successful in deterring Russia, as "Russian ground forces will be significantly depleted over the next 10 years."

 Wallace noted that Western countries, as before, support the provision of arms and funding to Ukraine, without putting pressure on Kyiv to start peace talks with Russia.

 At the same time, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Friday that "Ukraine's rightful place is in NATO."

 President Volodymyr Zelenskyі is counting on a step forward in rapprochement with the North Atlantic Alliance and claims that security guarantees are needed only until Ukraine is in NATO.