Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday, March 15, that his country no longer had any use for NATO membership, because the Atlantic Alliance does not live, and has not lived up to its word of supporting democracy and freedom. The Ukrainian leader’s criticism, delivered in a daily address to the nation, tacitly ceded to the Russian Federation (RF) one aim of the Kremlin’s ongoing war: that Ukraine never become a NATO member.
“If the doors to the alliance (NATO) really were open, we wouldn’t have been begging them to close our skies (to RF aircraft) for the last 20 days, so our people stop getting bombed,” Zelensky said.
“Either they don’t hear us, or they don’t want to hear us,” Zelensky said, adding that “certain nations” within NATO are continuing to veto repeated and urgent Ukrainian requests the alliance commit aircraft to a no-fly zone over Ukraine, to stop RF missile and bombardment of Ukrainian homes and businesses.
“The fifth article of the Atlantic Alliance was never as weak as it is right now – that’s just our opinion. When certain members of the alliance, refused to be real allies, to defend freedom, and democracy, Zelensky said. “We must search for security guarantees elsewhere,” he noted, adding that Ukrainian and RF diplomats are in talks over a possible ceasefire in fighting, which started on Feb. 24 when the RF army invaded Ukraine from three directions.
According to most observers, the Kremlin had hoped for a quick and easy victory, but instead got bogged down against a dogged and at times vicious Ukrainian defense. Zelensky said that for Ukraine to agree to any ceasefire or peace agreement, it must have ironclad guarantees to its security and territorial integrity – something NATO is patently incapable of providing.
“We need absolute concrete, written guarantees, so that in the future, we don’t hear the excuses that we’re hearing now, when we turn to those, who signed the Budapest Agreement, and ask them to do something to stop the Russian invasion,” Zelensky underlined. In 1994 Ukraine signed the so-called Budapest Agreement with Russia, Great Britain and the United States as co-signatories, in which Ukraine agreed to give away its nuclear weapons in exchange for the signatories’ guarantee they would respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. The agreement calls for “consultation” in the event of violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, but does not spell out what other signatories should or could do if one of the signatories attacked Ukraine. Russian forces attacked and annexed Crimea and the Donbas region in spring 2014, subsequently annexing territory.
