Excerpts
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg:
On Friday, NATO Foreign Ministers called again on Russia to remove its forces from Ukraine and from your borders.
Demonstrate transparency
And de-escalate.
Any further aggression against Ukraine would come at a high political and economic price.
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Ukraine is a valued and long-standing partner to NATO.
And today’s meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission comes at the start of an important week for European security.
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We will listen to Russia’s concerns, but any meaningful dialogue must also address our concerns about Russia’s actions.
And it must take place in consultation with Ukraine, as we are doing today.
We are also consulting closely with other partners, including Georgia, Moldova, Finland, Sweden, and the European Union.
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Political support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, but also practical support with our comprehensive assistance package, with different trust funds, with different activities conducted by the NATO Office in Kiev, where we help to implement reforms, help to modernize Ukraine’s armed forces. And I always encourage allies to step up and also provide more support within the NATO framework.
I, for instance, visited Odessa some time ago and then I saw how NATO helped to train and build the naval capabilities of Ukraine at the Naval Academy in Odessa. We also exercise together and we work together in many ways.
On top of that, we also have many Allies providing bilateral support to Ukraine with training, with capacity, with different types of equipment. And I encourage and welcome the support NATO Allies provide bilaterally directly to Ukraine.
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We have reiterated the decision we made at the Bucharest Summit in 2008 and we stand by that decision. We help Ukraine to move towards a NATO membership by implementing reforms, by meeting NATO standards.
And we have stated very clearly that we will never compromise on the right for every nation in Europe to choose its own path, including what kind of security arrangements it wants to be a part of. And therefore, it is fundamental that that principle is not violated in any way.
Meaning that it is for Ukraine and the 30 NATO Allies to decide when Ukraine is ready for membership. No one else has any right to say anything about that.
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Olga Stefanishyna, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration:
Thank you so much. I will start by saying that Ukraine is not Kazakhstan. Definitely.
Anti-bellum 