Zelenskyy’s party suggests a new security agreement for Ukraine

Denys Karlovskiy — Tuesday, 8 March 2022, 16:51

The Ukrainian Parliament majority Sluha Narodu Party has proposed to sign a new security guarantee agreement for Ukraine with the United States, Turkey, and Russia instead of NATO membership.

Source: Sluha Narodu press service

Quote: "The Alliance is not ready to accept Ukraine for at least the next 15 years, and they have made this very clear. We now do not even have the support of a perfectly just war from the Alliance - only from individual Member States.

As it is impossible to join NATO in the coming years, we cannot use only the articles of the Constitution setting up the course towards the Alliance to defend our country. The course is politics. But it is not weapons. Not planes. Not protection of the state.

Instead, we need to talk about concrete things. About a solid agreement that can guarantee Ukraine's full security until NATO is ready to accept us. It should be fundamentally different from the Budapest Memorandum - to provide for specific political, economic, and military steps of the states-guarantors of Ukraine's security."

Details: The party suggests the US, Turkey, and neighbouring countries, together with Russia, could be parties to such an agreement.

By signing such an agreement, Sluha Narodu suggests, Russia will be under a legal obligation to recognize Ukrainian statehood and refrain from threatening the Ukrainian people and its government.

The party recognizes that such a proposal may seem absurd but insists that the new treaty would set out specific steps to be taken by other guarantor states against the violating party.

In addition, Sluha Narodu gave assurances that in no circumstances would Ukraine cede its territory or agree to any ultimatums concerning its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The statement said that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the American TV channel ABC that Ukraine was ready to discuss a "settlement " for residents of Crimea and areas of Donetsk and Luhansk occupied by Russian troops, but not to give up on them.

Background: In 1994, the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum, guaranteeing the inviolability of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territory.

The Ukrainian government, for its part, pledged to give up all nuclear weapons left in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia violated the terms of the memorandum in 2014 by seizing control of the Crimean peninsula, starting a war in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and then again in 2022, by launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Politicians and lawyers now argue that the mechanisms of the memorandum were not binding.

The Constitution of Ukraine  enshrines the irreversibility of Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic course. 

• President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the American TV channel ABC that he had "cooled down" towards the prospect of Ukraine's membership of NATO after the Alliance's unwillingness to provide concrete assistance and protect the Ukrainians from armed aggression. The President said that he was ready to discuss the issue of Ukraine's accession to NATO and the issue of the temporarily occupied territories at the talks with Russia.
• On March 6, the leader of the Sluha Narodu faction, David Arahamiya, stated that Ukraine was ready to discuss a security model outside of NATO membership in talks on ending the war with Russia.
• One of Putin's demands for an end to war with Ukraine is to guarantee Ukraine's neutral status - that is, to deprive it of the prospect of membership in the North Atlantic Alliance. In addition, the Kremlin demands recognition of Ukraine's Russian occupation of Crimea and parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as the return of modern weapons provided by Ukraine's Western partners.
• Ukrainian sociologists have recorded a record level of support for Ukraine's accession to NATO among Ukrainian citizens since the start of the full-scale Russian war against Ukraine - over 75%.
• On Friday, March 4, President Volodymyr Zelensky criticised NATO leaders harshly for refusing to establish a "no-fly zone" in the skies over Ukraine. He said the Alliance was divided, weak and unable to protect the world from arbitrary armed aggression.