Only NATO membership is effective security guarantee for Ukraine – head of committee on Ukraine's integration into EU
Only NATO membership is effective security guarantee for Ukraine – head of committee on Ukraine's integration into EU
KYIV. Aug 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Effective security guarantees for Ukraine may include not something like Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, but direct membership in NATO, Head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Ukraine's integration into the European Union Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze (European Solidarity faction) has said.
"It is extremely important that European leaders, together with the President of Ukraine, agreed on a common position and conveyed to the U.S. President the prioritization of the discussion of security guarantees for Ukraine. At the same time, it is obvious that effective security guarantees for Ukraine may not include something like Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, but rather direct membership in NATO. Something like that may be an intermediate stage on this path. At the moment, as far as I understand, only the outlines of these guarantees have been outlined, and there is no clear understanding of how they should work," Klympush-Tsintsadze told Interfax-Ukraine, commenting on the results of the meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.S. President Donald Trump and European leaders in Washington.
According to the MP, it is good that an agreement was reached on the possibility of further purchases of the U.S. weapons, because they are critical for Ukraine. "We are grateful to the Europeans who are ready to provide us with the opportunity to pay for these weapons," the committee head said.
"Regarding the meeting with Putin, we already see that there are some attempts by this scoundrel to propose other formats – not a trilateral meeting, but initially a supposedly bilateral one at the level of some high-level delegations. At a time when we need to ensure that all meetings with Putin take place with the participation of Ukraine, Europe and the United States. All this indicates that Putin is stalling for time," Klympush-Tsintsadze said.
She considers it a mistake that the U.S. president decided to follow the model proposed by Putin and refused to insist on a ceasefire regime for real negotiations.
"This allows Putin to use his traditional tactics of further intensifying attacks and military pressure both at the front and throughout the territory of Ukraine. He has always done so during the more than 11 years of this war during any negotiations. Unfortunately, he will do this in order to intimidate Ukrainian society and put pressure on both Ukraine and its partners in this way in the future," Klympush-Tsintsadze said.
The committee's head also said Zelenskyy does not have the authority to discuss the issue of territorial exchanges during the negotiations.
"I do not know where the President of Ukraine has the authority to discuss any territorial exchanges. The Ukrainian Constitution and the people did not give Zelenskyy the mandate to discuss any transfers of Ukrainian territories," Klympush-Tsintsadze said.
