For someone who is as seasoned a diplomat as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is, the reckless rhetoric he displayed on Thursday was as disturbing as it was shocking.

After a meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Brussels on Thursday, Blinken told reporters that Ukraine was going to become a member of NATO without offering any qualifiers.

“Ukraine will become a member of NATO. Our purpose at the summit is to help build a bridge to that membership,” he said.

Kuleba followed up Blinken’s statement by saying, “Of course, we believe that Ukraine deserves to be a member of NATO and that this should happen sooner rather than later.”

With the war in Ukraine initiated by Russia’s invasion in 2022, the prospect of the Eastern European nation joining the military alliance of Western Europe and the United States has dire implications.

As it stands today, Ukraine is losing ground to the invading Russian army that is significantly larger and better armed than the Ukrainian military. For a sovereign country that was unjustly invaded, this is a tragic reality but a reality nonetheless.

Russia and its president Vladimir Putin have made clear that NATO membership for Ukraine is a motivator behind their unjust invasion. As unfair to Ukraine as this is, to allow Ukraine to join NATO at this juncture, or even discuss it openly, raises the prospects that the conflict in the region could escalate into a much greater one between nations that have and maintain massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

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This is not an outcome that is in the interests of the U.S. What is in the interests of the U.S. and the people of Ukraine is bringing an end to the conflict in the region. But instead of doing that, Blinken is embracing reckless rhetoric that is creating obstacles to negotiating peace in the region while raising the prospect of NATO being drawn into a possibly catastrophic conflict in Europe.

As the longtime diplomat he is, he should know better.