One of the excuses for Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine was the prospect of Ukraine's alleged membership in NATO.

Axar.az reports that members of the North Atlantic bloc, such as France and Germany, have made no secret of their opposition to NATO membership in Ukraine and Georgia. Even now, Kyiv is openly told that Ukraine will not be able to join the organization for decades.

These views are reflected in the analysis of the Atlas Research Center.

The center said that despite this, the Kremlin continues to threaten the Russian people with NATO:

"In a speech on May 9, the Kremlin owner announced that NATO was preparing to attack Crimea together with Ukraine, and said that if Russia had not attacked Ukraine, the North Atlantic bloc would have taken action to seize the peninsula. This is another myth about NATO. Neither NATO nor the Ukrainian leadership planned to return Crimea by military means. Both Brussels and Kyiv understood that this would not be possible. The power of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was enough to hold the "Crimean Platform" in Kyiv in August last year. Even now, during the war, Kyiv is thinking more about the return of the occupied territories after February 24 than about Crimea.