Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze: “NATO membership should be a part of Ukraine’s victory”

The Chair of the Committee on Ukraine’s Integration into the EU emphasised this during the discussion in the framework of the Kyiv Security Forum dedicated to Ukraine’s pass to NATO.

During the fifteen months of the full-scale war, according to her, the free world experienced a great transformation from the narrative that Ukraine cannot lose the war to the readiness to support the statement that Ukraine must win. “This is a huge step forward for our partners. At the same time, it seems to me that our friends and our partners are not quite ready to accept that Russia must be defeated in this war. All our partners will have to go through this transition to be on the same page. And then we will have a general picture of the vision of the Ukrainian society and Ukrainian politicians and the vision of our partners. At the moment, we are not there yet,” said the Chair of the Committee.

In her opinion, there is currently no consensus in the Alliance regarding inviting Ukraine to NATO in Vilnius in July this year. “In my opinion, this would be another NATO mistake, a similar or even more tragic than the one made in 2008 in Bucharest. We still have some time, and I hope that our efforts here at the Kyiv Security Forum and our joint efforts at the level of the civil society, traditional diplomacy, and parliamentary diplomacy will contribute to the result of the summit,” said Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.

She is also sure that Ukraine and its Western partners still do not have a common understanding of what Ukraine's victory means: “Is it a return to the borders as of February 24, 2022, or to the borders of 1991? Is it the capitulation of the Russian Federation, or is it a Ukrainian flag over the Kremlin? I can say what Ukraine's victory means to me. Ukraine should regain its territories within the borders of 1991. Russia should be weakened to the point where it can no longer attack any other country. Russia should be isolated, and we should not lift sanctions immediately after the end of the war. We should not immediately start buying fuels from the Russian Federation again. We should not allow further transfer of technologies to the Russian Federation. We should establish a hundred kilometres demilitarised zone on the territory of the Russian Federation around Ukraine. We should prosecute Russia. This is fundamental.”

Without punishing Russia, according to the Chair of the Committee, there will be no lasting peace. Therefore, such a punishment should take place through the Special Tribunal, which will hold the Russian Federation accountable for the crime of aggression, as well as through the International Criminal Court and other platforms. Definitely, part of the victory should be Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance. Without this, there can be no serious conversation about long-term sustainable peace on the European continent,” Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze said.