NATO inviting Ukraine to join the military alliance would mark “a definitive step away from the politics of appeasement and back to the rule of international law and protection of human rights,” dozens of scholars said in an open letter published by The Guardian on July 27. “The focus on Russia’s alleged ‘Nato expansion anxiety,’ and attempts to appease it, ignore Russia’s genocidal propaganda and systematic war crimes in occupied territory of Ukraine, including massacres, mass rape and torture,” they said. At its recent summit in Washington, the 32 members of NATO stated that the alliance would continue to support Ukraine on its "irreversible path" to membership, but no timeline was set.