The NATO summit has come to an end and despite Ukraine not officially joining the alliance, an ex-NATO chief believes the conference still sent a strong message to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine's worries about where its future lies in NATO have been calmed after it was agreed the country would eventually be invited to join the alliance.
It comes as France and the UK agreed to supply the country with long-range missiles - reaching around 250km.
But, while some frustrations have been eased, Ukraine has been told conditions have to be met before it can join, with no clear timeline in place as the two-day meeting of NATO leaders on Russia's doorstep came to an end.
Former NATO deputy supreme commander general Sir Richard Shirreff told AM on Thursday he understands where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's concerns are coming from.
Sir Richard told AM co-host Laura Tupou Ukraine will absolutely join NATO, it's just a matter of when.
"How can you give a timeline in the middle of a war of the sort of intensity and scale we're seeing now in Eastern Europe, you can't," he said.
"What I think the alliance could have said is you will become a member as soon as conditions allow. I think they could have defined those conditions in terms of a ceasefire, Russian defeat, armistice."
Sir Richard believes it's not surprising Ukraine didn't officially join the alliance this time around. NATO is made up of 31 member countries who each have their own agendas and are subject to the "whims of their electorates".
"NATO can only move forward on the basis of consensus. That means all 31 member states must agree and that inevitably waters things down and results in NATO having to move at the speed of the slowest ship in the convoy and there are a couple of pretty slow ships," he explained.
Sir Richard mentioned Germany wasn't sold on the conditions for NATO membership for Ukraine and the US was in the same boat.
But despite this, US President Joe Biden, who has made unifying NATO one of his top foreign policy priorities, promised his country "will not waver" in its support for Ukraine.
Biden pledged the NATO alliance will not break apart and called out Putin for having a "craven lust for land and power".
"I think you have to accept with NATO, you're never going to get 100 percent solution, if you can get 75 percent you're doing okay and I think this is probably around about 60 to 70 percent. So not as good as some of us had hoped for, certainly not as good as the Ukrainians had hoped for," Sir Richard said.
But despite this, he believes this will still send a strong and powerful message to Putin.
"NATO will do what needs to be done to support Ukraine and will remain supporting Ukraine for the long term because it's really important Putin gets a strong message because, at the end of the day, Russia will only respect strength," he said.
One country that has been approved to join NATO is Sweden and Sir Richard said this sends another strong message to Russia.
"Let's be clear, this is a war not just against Ukraine where it's being fought, but it's also a war against the West," he said.
"It's a war against NATO and it's a war against Ukraine joining the West. So instead of less NATO, Putin's now got a lot more NATO and more still to come."
New Zealand is not a part of NATO, but when asked if he could see a world where New Zealand is invited to join, Sir Richard said it's unlikely.
"NATO's good at building partnerships and it would be quite a stretch to think of that Article Five commitment to New Zealand from the trans-Atlantic region," he told AM.
"I think you can be sure the partnership that has already been built up over that very difficult campaign will continue and there can be a great deal of shared ideas, shared best practices, shared experience, which can enhance and bolster New Zealand and other partner state security in the region."
Watch the full interview with Sir Richard Shirreff in the video above.
