The Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Ukraine is renouncing the guarantees that are substitutes for NATO membership

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Ukraine is renouncing the guarantees that are substitutes for NATO membership

Kyiv  •  UNN

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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine stated that it is refusing any security guarantees that are an alternative to full membership in NATO. The decision was made in view of the experience of the Budapest Memorandum and its ineffectiveness.

Given the experience of the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine will not agree to any alternatives to full membership in NATO, as stated in the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, which was published on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum, reports UNN.

We call on the USA and the UK, who signed the Budapest Memorandum, France and China, who joined it, and all the states parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to support the provision of effective security guarantees to Ukraine.  We are convinced that the only such real security guarantee for Ukraine, as well as a deterrent to further aggression by Russia against Ukraine and other states, is Ukraine's full membership in NATO.  Having the bitter experience of the Budapest Memorandum behind us, we will not accept any alternatives, surrogates or substitutes for Ukraine's full membership in NATO

- as stated in the NATO statement.

It is noted that  inviting Ukraine to NATO now will be an effective counteraction to Russian blackmail and will deprive the Kremlin of illusions about the possibility of preventing Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic integration. "This is also the only chance to stop the erosion of the key principles of nuclear non-proliferation and restore confidence in nuclear disarmament", the MFA added.

Supplement 

The President named the USA, Germany and Hungary among the countries that are skeptical about inviting Ukraine to NATO. Zelenskyy expects recommendations from the Alliance's foreign ministers at the meeting on December 3-4.

According to Reuters, at the meeting of the NATO foreign ministers this week, a decision on inviting Ukraine to join the alliance is unlikely to be made.