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Ukraine amends statement saying Biden backed NATO membership plan

08 June 2021
 Dan Ackermann

The White House and the Ukrainian government initially sent out conflicting official accounts of Monday's phone call between President Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Why it matters: Ukraine's government initially reported on its official website that Biden had "highlighted... the importance of providing the Ukrainian state with a NATO Membership Action Plan," which would put Ukraine on course for membership in the alliance. The White House denied Biden expressed support for such a step on the call.

  • "The Ukrainians mischaracterized the statement and corrected the record," a National Security Council spokesperson told Axios.
  • By Monday evening, the Ukrainian government's readout had been changed to remove the reference to NATO membership for Ukraine.

Flashback: Former President George W. Bush first backed the idea of giving Ukraine a Membership Action Plan — the process through which 11 eastern European countries have joined NATO — in 2008. Thirteen years later, the besieged state is no closer to NATO membership.

  • In the meantime, Russia has invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. The United States and Europe sent aid to Ukraine but made clear they would not use military force to defend Ukraine from Vladimir Putin.
  • Zelensky has made NATO integration a top priority, but progress on that front currently looks unlikely.

Of note: When asked, the White House declined to comment on whether Biden supports the idea of offering Ukraine a NATO Membership Action Plan this year.

Driving the news: During the call on Monday, Biden invited Zelensky to the White House in July.

Between the lines: That announcement came 18 hours after Axios published an interview with Zelensky in which the Ukrainian president criticized Biden's handling of Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline and urged Biden to meet with him "at any moment and at any spot on the planet" before seeing Putin.

Go deeper:Read the interview

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.