Ukraine may become NATO member in year or two after end of war – head of Rada delegation to NATO PA
Ukraine may become a member of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) in a year or two after the end of the war with Russia, Head of the permanent delegation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Yehor Cherniev (from the Servant of the People faction) has said.
"Any decision on Ukraine's membership in NATO will be only after the end of the war. It is clear that no NATO country would want to vote now for the membership of a country in which there is a war. This will automatically transfer the war to the entire alliance. Therefore, we need to end the war, we need to win this war, we will need to implement reforms, and I think that the prospect of membership is quite possible: I will not say that in months, but in the coming years after the end of the war. Everything will depend on us, how quickly we will make reforms. I hope it can be at least a year or two. But we do not know when the war will end," Cherniev told Interfax-Ukraine.
According to the MP, the war reduced the skepticism of Ukraine's Western partners regarding its entry into the Alliance.
"If before the war representatives of some countries told us behind the scenes: 'You are good guys, but we do not see you in NATO yet,' now there is no such skepticism. Just as there is no fear that the decision on Ukraine's membership in NATO will tease Russia, which stopped individual countries from taking such a step," Cherniev said.
He said the scheme for Finland and Sweden to join NATO is a good precedent for Ukraine.
"We can speak and appeal to this example, on the one hand. On the other hand, we are well aware that we have homework to do. Since the NATO standard, the NATO criterion is not only a military component. There is a fairly wide range of reforms that need to be done to match NATO countries. We have done a lot in recent years. But still, this is not enough," Cherniev said.
The politician said Ukraine offers the Alliance to work out a special procedure for it to join NATO.
"We spoke honestly with the Alliance that we have already outgrown the MAP format [NATO Membership Action Plan]. And adoption without MAP is probably too early for NATO, so let us find some kind of format in the middle. Maybe it will be a specific list of reforms that should be carried out. With concrete indicators of what needs to be done and when. And so that after the implementation of these reforms, more and more new ones do not arise," Cherniev said.
He said Ukraine, annually implementing national programs under the auspices of the Ukraine-NATO Commission, by and large implements the action plan for NATO membership. "We have been implementing annual national programs for 13 years already. They are agreed at the beginning of each year with NATO headquarters, and at the end of each year an assessment is made: what has been done. And we are quite successful in doing so. This is what the MAP actually consists of. When a country receives a MAP, it is used to develop an annual national program. That is, de facto we are fulfilling the MAP. De jure, we need to consolidate this and somehow move on. And how it will be called the MAP or just some kind of list of reforms that we must do is the second question, and we are just now agreeing on this," Cherniev said.
