About 20% of Ukrainians ready to give up NATO membership for end to war

Anton Hrushetskyi, Executive Director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, said this on the Espreso TV channel.

"This figure has been quite stable over the past few years. Ukrainians are becoming more critical of these institutions, but they are not giving up on this goal, realizing that only NATO and the EU are a secure future for us and our children. At the same time, in terms of willingness to make concessions, only about 20% of Ukrainians are ready to give up Ukraine's membership in NATO in exchange for an end to the war. In the case of the European Union, the figure is even lower," he said.

Hrushetskyi mentioned that even the renouncement of NATO membership would not entail receiving any other guarantees that ordinary Ukrainians would trust.

"Unfortunately, there are two unpleasant experiences. The first is the Budapest Memorandum. Ukrainians remember it and are still remembering it. Although, according to a survey in the 90s, Ukrainians generally had a normal attitude towards Ukraine's nuclear disarmament at that time. The second point is the Minsk agreements. People remember that Ukraine de facto gave up some territories, postponed their liberation in exchange for an end to the war. What we got was an invasion and even more casualties and destruction," he added.

• Recently, U.S. President Joe Biden said that Ukraine does not necessarily need to become a NATO member to achieve peace.