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How NATO factors into the Ukraine-Russia conflict

ABC News: Ukraine is not a member of NATO, though the international security alliance has been a key player in its ongoing conflict with Russia, which escalated to a full-scale invasion by Russian forces Thursday.

Since the United States helped form NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in 1949 to counter Soviet aggression in Europe, the alliance has grown to 30 member countries, including three former Soviet republics -- the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

In 2008, NATO appeared to open the door to membership to two more former Soviet republics when its heads of government declared that Georgia and Ukraine "will become members of NATO."

Neither have formally received a pathway to eventual membership, with corruption concerns and a lack of consensus among members seen in part as holding back Ukraine's invitation. Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine never join the alliance as he seeks to limit NATO’s presence in Eastern Europe.

Putin's military operation has prompted NATO allies, worried about further escalation, to issue sanctions meant to impact the Russian economy, bolster troops along the alliance's Eastern flank and repeatedly warn that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all.

In the wake of Russia's attack on Ukraine, President Joe Biden announced that NATO will convene a summit Friday to "affirm our solidarity and to map out the next steps we will take to further strengthen all aspects of our NATO alliance."

Biden has repeatedly said the U.S. won't be sending troops to engage with Russia in Ukraine, though he has recently authorized the deployment of ground and air forces in Europe to support NATO's eastern flank allies -- Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania -- in response to Russian aggression. Following Thursday's attack on Ukraine, Biden said he has authorized additional forces to deploy to Germany as part of NATO's response. According to a senior Defense Department official, 7,000 service members will be deployed to Germany in the coming days.

"Our forces are not going to Europe to fight in Ukraine but to defend our NATO allies and reassure those allies in the East," Biden said during an address Thursday. "As I made crystal clear, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full force of American power."

During a video address days before he announced a military operation in Ukraine, Putin linked the current crisis directly to Russia's NATO demands, which include a guarantee that NATO stop expanding to the East and pull back its infrastructure from Eastern European countries that joined after the Cold War. He accused the U.S. and NATO of ignoring Russia's demands and blamed the West for the current crisis in Ukraine.

The potential impact of the Ukraine conflict on U.S. interests is considered "significant," by the Council on Foreign Relations, which said in part that the conflict "risks further deterioration of U.S.-Russia relations and greater escalation if Russia expands its presence in Ukraine or into NATO countries."

"I think we shouldn't get fixated only on Ukraine," Doug Lute, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and ABC News contributor, told ABC News Live following Putin's speech. "[Putin's] ambitions beyond that are to essentially rewind the clock 30 years and reverse the progress made in Western Europe, certainly Central and Eastern Europe, and if possible, break the ties between the United States and its European allies."

MORE: Why Americans should care about the Ukraine-Russia conflict
Were the conflict to go beyond Ukraine and impact NATO members, that could lead the organization to invoke its mutual self-defense clause -- what's known as Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which states that "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all." If one ally is attacked, the others will respond with necessary action, including armed force, "to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area." >>>