President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke about his conversation with US presidential candidate Donald Trump, in which he emphasized the importance of Ukraine's membership in NATO as an alternative to nuclear weapons to protect the country. He said this at a press conference following his participation in a meeting of the European Council, UNN reports .
"I talked to Donald Trump about NATO because there were different signals in the media about his attitude toward Ukraine in the Alliance," Zelenskyy said.
According to him, he gave Trump an example of the Budapest Memorandum, which failed to protect Ukraine after it gave up nuclear weapons.
"And in a conversation with Donald Trump, I said that either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and then it will be a defense for us. Or we must have some kind of alliance. Apart from NATO, we do not know any effective alliances today. The NATO countries are not at war today, they are not fighting, and there are people alive there. We choose NATO over nuclear weapons. I believe that Trump heard me, because he explained that these are "effective arguments," the head of state said.
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President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasized that an immediate invitation to join NATO would be a decisive signal that would strengthen Ukraine's position in the international arena and confirm the irreversibility of its European integration and democratic development.