Ukraine will not accept substitutes for NATO membership — MFA

Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs website shared the statement.

“We are convinced that the only real guarantee of security for Ukraine, as well as a deterrent to further Russian aggression against Ukraine and other states, is Ukraine's full membership in NATO,” the statement said. 

At the same time, the document emphasized that “with 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.”

The statement was made on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum, which will come on December 5. According to European Pravda's sources, the document was made public earlier because Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha intends to present this position at the NATO ministerial meeting that begins on December 3 in Brussels.

“The memorandum was supposed to be a significant step in strengthening global nuclear disarmament and serve as an example for other states to renounce nuclear weapons... However, it failed to prevent the aggression of the Russian Federation as a nuclear-weapon state against Ukraine as a state that has renounced its nuclear arsenal,” the statement said.

The ministry called the Budapest Memorandum “a monument to shortsightedness in making strategic security decisions” and emphasized that “the development of the European security architecture at the expense of Ukraine's interests, and not with them in mind, is doomed to failure.”

The ministry also appealed to “the United States and the United Kingdom, which signed the Budapest Memorandum, to France and China, which joined it, to all states parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” calling for political support for Ukraine's invitation to NATO right now, which would be “an effective counteraction to Russian blackmail.”

• Earlier, Reuters wrote Ukraine is calling on NATO to invite it to join the Alliance following a meeting of foreign ministers on December 3-4.