The Ukrainian authorities welcome NATO’s refusal to grant Russia a right to look at a possible accession from their country to the Atlantic Alliance.
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The threat of a Russian military invasion in Ukraine has not disappeared, but Kiev despite all a reason for satisfaction: since the beginning of the crisis in the spring of 2021 and the deployment of 100,000 Russian soldiers at the Ukrainian borders, The country benefits from a strong support from its American and European partners. The Summit, Wednesday, January 12, between Russia and NATO, has provided further evidence. The Atlantic Alliance has thus repeated its refusal to grant Moscow a right to look at a possible adhesion of Ukraine.
The day before, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ukrainian, Dmyro Kuleba, welcomed the “unity and coherence of the positions face (…) to the Russian ultimatums”, after the talks, Monday, in Geneva, between the Russia and the United States. Moscow “does not have the right to vote” on the possible accession of Ukraine to NATO, he insisted.
According to Oleksiy Melnyk, codirector of the Razumkov Reflection Center, in Kiev, “Ukraine has many reasons to be satisfied and grateful to its international partners, even if it sometimes complains of some of them. They provide him with enormous military and economic support, almost as much as if Ukraine was a member of NATO “. Since the beginning of the war in the Donbass and the annexation of Crimea by Moscow, in 2014, the United States has granted more than $ 2.5 billion (2.2 billion euros) of safe aid to The former Soviet Republic, of which $ 450 million just in 2021.
The collapse of the image of Russia
If the summit between Russia and NATO does not yet allow to consider de-escalation, the sequence of international negotiations – which opened on Monday in Geneva and continues Thursday in Vienna with a meeting of the organization For security and cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – nevertheless offers Ukraine a brief respite. “While the discussions continue, at least Putin does not decide to attack Ukraine,” says Melnyk.
For its part, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, called Tuesday at a Quadripartite Summit with Moscow, Paris and Berlin to “put an end to the conflict” with Prorussian separatists, supported by Moscow. A request, for the hour, dead letter.
The war in the Donbass, which has already done more than 13,000 deaths in almost eight years, has in any case profoundly changed the way the Ukrainians perceive their great neighbor. Before the bursting of the conflict, more than 80% considered Russia as a friend country, compared to 8% today, according to a study published in 2021 by the Razumkov Center. At the same time, less than 20% supported the integration of Ukraine into NATO. They are more than 50% today.