Former Commander of US Army Europe, Ben Hodges, thinks Georgia should be in NATO right now. Ben Hodges says he would advocate an immediate membership invitation to Georgia.

“Georgia should be in NATO right now, Georgia should already be a member, we don’t need a Membership Action Plan, we are beyond there with Georgia, so I would advocate an immediate membership invitation to Georgia,” Ben Hodges said in an exclusive interview with the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB).

As to Ukraine, Hodges notes it will be a little further. “We need to figure out how we, the West, the US, Germany, France, and the UK, in particular, are going to help protect Ukrainian sovereignty,” Hodges stressed.

Lieutenant General (Ret) believes “Russia’s long-term objective is Odesa, and to be able to separate Ukraine from the Black Sea.”

“For the West, we should be making a very clear in the diplomatic sphere that what Russia is doing is completely unacceptable. We should work hard with our German, French, and British allies to get them also publicly to call out Kremling for this provocative, unnecessarily aggressive behavior and total lack of transparency. We should also be looking at other means of leverages,” Hodges added.

Ukraine has accused Russia of massing thousands of military personnel on its northern and eastern borders earlier this week.

Ukraine’s president has called on Nato and key member states to dash his country’s membership of the western military alliance in response to Russian troop movements.