Ukraine Confirms It Signed Nato Membership Bid on Friday, Ruled Out Talks With Putin President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced a surprise bid for fast-track membership of the NATO military alliance on Friday and ruled out talks with President Vladimir Putin, striking back at Moscow after it said it had annexed four Ukrainian regions. Zelenskiy signed the NATO application papers in an online video clearly intended as a forceful rebuttal to the Kremlin after Putin held a ceremony in Moscow to proclaim the four partially occupied regions as annexed Russian land. "We are taking our decisive step by signing Ukraine's application for accelerated accession to NATO," Zelenskiy said in the video on the Telegram app. The announcement was likely to touch a nerve in Moscow which casts the NATO bloc at home as a hostile military alliance bent on encroaching on Moscow's sphere of influence. Zelenskiy said that while Ukraine waits for consensus among NATO member states, it could be protected under draft security guarantees proposed by Kyiv and known as the Kyiv Security Compact, which Moscow has rejected as an idea. "We understand that this requires the consensus of all the alliance's members… and therefore, while this is happening, we propose the realization of our proposals regarding security guarantees for Ukraine and all of Europe according to the Kyiv Security Compact," he said. Source: Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/zelenskiy-says-ukraine-applying-nato-membership-2022-09-30/) Read More: 9/14 - Ukraine Welcomes Report on International Security Guarantees Rejected by Moscow (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-welcomes-report-international-security-guarantees-rejected-by-moscow-2022-09-14/)