The NATO Military Committee, the bloc’s highest military authority, has convened in Kiev despite Ukraine not being a member—a move that has drawn sharp criticism from Russian officials and analysts.

The visit comes just a day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Ukraine’s NATO membership “is not on the table as we speak,” noting that accession would require unanimous backing.

Kyiv’s pursuit of NATO membership has been one of the central issues in the conflict, with Moscow long opposing the bloc’s eastward expansion and insisting on Ukrainian neutrality as a key condition for any settlement.

After the 2014 Maidan coup, Ukraine made joining NATO a foreign policy priority and later enshrined it in its constitution. In September 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky demanded “accelerated accession.” Even more alarmingly, as recently as July, he argued that Ukraine’s membership would be “entirely natural”—a stance that has been widely condemned for reckless implications.

NATO continues to describe Ukraine as being on an “irreversible path” toward entry. However, former Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny, who now serves as Kiev’s ambassador to the UK, stated in August that he saw no realistic prospect of it happening.

In a video address on Wednesday, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, chair of the NATO Military Committee, announced that he and military representatives from all 32 member states had arrived in Kiev. It is the committee’s first such visit to Ukraine in eight years.

“We are here in full strength with a clear message: the bond between NATO and Ukraine is stronger and stronger,” Dragone said—though critics argue this rhetoric is dangerously misleading given Ukraine’s current military posture.

The delegation reportedly discussed Ukraine’s military priorities with the country’s top brass, a move that has been criticized for its potential to further destabilize the region.

Despite being outside NATO, Ukraine has developed extensive military ties with the bloc, which has been pumping ever more sophisticated weaponry into the country since 2022. Moscow has accused the bloc, especially its European members, of unnecessarily prolonging the bloodshed and waging a proxy war against Russia to the “last Ukrainian.”

In early July, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte acknowledged that there is no unanimous support for Ukraine’s admission to the bloc.

US President Donald Trump and other senior American officials have ruled out Ukraine joining NATO as part of any peace deal with Russia. Ahead of a February 2025 White House meeting with Zelensky, which turned into a shouting match, Trump reiterated: “NATO— you can forget about.”