Interfax-Ukraine
November 25, 2022

Ukraine needs air shield, reliable security guarantees – Yermak at Ukraine-NATO Commission meeting

Ukraine needs reliable security guarantees, an important component of which is the security of the skies and effective air defense, Head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermak said during a videoconference meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Commission.

***

“Kyiv Security Treaty suggests that this should be a joint document on a strategic partnership between Ukraine and the guarantor states. These obligations must be reliable, since we cannot agree to a new list of non-binding assurances like the infamous Budapest Memorandum,” Yermak said.

He also said the air defense and missile defense system of Ukraine can be integrated with the systems of NATO and Europe. Yermak recalled that at the end of September, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, together with the Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament and the Prime Minister, submitted an official application for Ukraine’s membership in NATO. This application means that Ukraine once and for all rejected the option of neutrality or non-bloc status….

“We believe that soon Ukraine will be ready to start the accession process, skipping the MAP [Membership Action Plan] in terms of meeting the standards of the Alliance and the level of interoperability. We suggest that Ukraine, as a unique partner of the Alliance in a very special security situation, will have its own reasonable path to NATO membership,” Yermak said.

In addition, he focused on the importance of creating a special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine committed by the Russian leadership.

“We are grateful to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly for supporting the creation of a special tribunal. We call on our partners, in particular the Alliance and its members, to take part in consultations on an international treaty and its creation. Ukraine has prepared relevant draft documents that could become the basis for further work on the creation special tribunal,” the head of the President’s Office said.