If Ukraine joins NATO while Ukraine is at war, will NATO declare war on Russia?
I know if a country declares war on a NATO country, all NATO countries will declare war on the axis country. How does this work when a new country joins NATO that is currently in a conflict?
There is pretty good consensus around not joining NATO while you're in a territorial dispute.
Which is one reason why Russia love to maintain low-intensity border conflicts with non-NATO member countries, just to keep them out of NATO. Russia is gaming that rule to the extent that the world might actually be a more peaceful place if NATO scrapped that rule and allowed new members with a border conflict.