Zelensky and Biden disagree over Ukraine's application to join NATO.

President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to agree that Ukraine's entrance to NATO would only happen after the war is over during the annual meeting of NATO leaders, which started with unexpected tension but finished on a tone of unity. Zelensky advocated for Ukraine's invitation to join the military alliance in the lead-up to the summit. Although the Group of Seven nations—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, and the United States—issued a unified statement of "unwavering" support for Ukraine earlier on Wednesday, that request was ultimately denied. Individual NATO leaders also provided security guarantees and extra funds to Kiev.

In an exclusive interview with CNN, Joe Biden stated that he does not believe Ukraine is currently prepared to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, more often known as NATO.

The US President reaffirmed that the US and its allies would continue to help Volodymyr Zelensky's administration in its fight against invading Russian forces.

In the midst of a war, "I don't think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now," Biden told CNN.

The US President emphasized that Ukraine must fulfill requirements before applying for membership in the alliance.

Even worse, the Biden interview happened just before the annual NATO summit, which in 2023 was held in Vilnius, Lithuania.

The Washington Post reports that Zelensky called the NATO procedure "absurd" and berated the members for not giving his country a deadline to join.

The Ukrainian President was successful in securing weapons and commitment from Western countries, but he was unsuccessful in moving his country's NATO candidacy forward.

In the end, experts concur that Zelensky and Ukraine were the biggest losers of the 2023 NATO meeting because they were unable to obtain a timeline for their membership application.

In a statement, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization stated that “we will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine when allies agree and conditions are met.”

NATO has been the focal point of conflict between Russia and the Western countries, which is no secret.

The Kremlin clearly requested that the Kyiv administration would not be a part of the alliance during the lead-up to the invasion of Ukraine.

NATO was created in 1949 as a partnership for collective security between the United States, Canada, and a number of Western European countries, including the Netherlands, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom.

Other countries eventually joined in throughout the years, including Western Germany, Spain, Greece, and Turkey.

In retaliation, the Soviet Union created the Warsaw Pact in 1955 among the countries behind the so-called iron barrier. The two main Cold War factions were defined by both coalitions.

The Warsaw Pact was nullified in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Kremlin has since pushed for the creation of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which is made up of six former Soviet states: Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Belarus.

The Baltic States, former Warsaw Pact members like Poland and Hungary, as well as the successor states to the defunct states of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, joined NATO as it grew throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

Naturally, the West's expansion into regions that were once under the Kremlin's control did not sit well with the Russian Federation.

One of the justifications for Russia's invasion of Ukraine was NATO's advance into 'historically' Russian territory.

However, it appears that Putin's special military operation has accelerated the very thing he didn't want as historically neutral Sweden and Finland have joined the treaty.

What remains to be seen is how long, if ever, Ukraine will take to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.