Ties with Washington are more important than any promises to Kiev, Mateusz Morawiecki has told the channel his own government banned

NATO's stance on Ukraine's membership bid is ultimately determined by the US administration, former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has told RT, apparently unaware that he was speaking to a journalist from the Russian channel banned in Poland since 2022.

Moscow has cited Kiev's NATO ambitions as one of the root causes of the ongoing conflict and has insisted on Ukraine's neutrality as a foundation for any settlement. Ukraine, meanwhile, has demanded a seat within the US-led military bloc as a security guarantee for ending the conflict.

On Friday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told Bloomberg that Kiev's membership was off the table in the current peace process.

RT's Charlotte Dubinskij approached Morawiecki as he arrived in Romania later that day to ask about NATO's apparent U-turn on Ukraine's potential accession to the bloc. Seemingly unaware that he was speaking to a journalist from the Russian news channel his own government banned in 2022, the former Polish prime minister said the shift was a result of a change in US policy.

"The current reality is that President Trump and the current American administration [are] excluding the accession of Ukraine to NATO. This is probably why... Rutte echoed what the American administration is indicating," Morawiecki explained.

The former prime minister added that he personally would still like to see Ukraine in the bloc, calling the country a "kind of a buffer" between Russia and NATO members in Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland. However, he acknowledged that a "common sense" approach would be to prioritize maintaining strong ties with Washington above all else.

According to Morawiecki, "there would be no Ukraine" without US support, and any assistance from Washington would be "critically important" for Kiev.

Most EU and NATO leaders - with the notable exceptions of Hungary's Viktor Orban and Slovakia's Robert Fico - have pushed for continued confrontation with Russia despite Washington advocating for a peace process.

European NATO countries have been supplying weapons to Kiev since the escalation of the conflict in 2022. Some bloc members, such as France and the UK, have floated the idea of deploying troops to Ukraine to monitor a truce.

Moscow has warned that any NATO troops deployed to Ukraine without a UN mandate would be considered legitimate targets.

Trump has pushed for a swift resolution to the conflict and has repeatedly stated that European nations should bear the primary responsibility for security guarantees to Kiev in the event of a peace settlement.