Ukraine is not against going the way of Sweden and Finland – Office of the President on the NATO application
Kyiv took into account the speed with Sweden and Finland, applying on September 30 to join NATO, Ukraine is also not against these countries. Deputy Chairman of the Office of the President Ihor Zhovkva announced this on the air of the national telethon.
“There is a decision of the Bucharest summit, which has not disappeared anywhere – it says that Ukraine will become a member of NATO. There is no word “once”. It says that Ukraine will become a member of NATO, one of the stages of which should be the provision of an Action Plan for membership. The statement of 2008… By the way, Bucharest’s statement was itself confirmed at the Madrid summit, when the new strategic concept of NATO for the next 10 years was duplicated with the relevant provision that Ukraine would become a member of NATO. Therefore, the decision regarding the membership of this or that country in NATO – for example, as is currently being made with Finland and Sweden – is taken on themselves. All the decisions themselves regarding the possibility of Ukraine’s membership in NATO and they cannot be forgotten,” he explained why today’s statement of nine countries – the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – should be interpreted as support for Ukraine’s membership in NATO.
Ihor Zhovkva noted that Ukraine can skip the stage of the Membership Action Plan.
“Of course, today we see that Sweden and Finland are moving towards NATO without an instrument – the Membership Action Plan. Ukraine is closely following this process and has seen that it is actually possible without the MAP. Ukraine takes these realities into account and took these realities into account when submitting the application on Friday. Ukraine is also not against going that way,” the representative of the President’s Office added.
Read also: “Putin must understand that Ukraine and NATO will respond” – Leah Scheunemann
On September 30, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, is ready for Kyiv to apply for NATO membership according to the issued procedure. NATO replied that this agreement requires all 30 members of the North Atlantic Alliance.
Before that, on September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the “accession” to the Russian Federation (actual annexation) of the partially occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions.
Ukraine and the West condemned such illegal actions of the Kremlin. Kyiv, Washington, as well as Britain and Canada announced new sanctions against the Russian Federation.
Finland and Sweden have not sought NATO membership for decades, but were prompted to do so by Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. Now their applications for accession are considered by each NATO member country.