The head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry called the country's membership in the alliance a "path to peace"
BERLIN, July 1. /tass/. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba urged the German government not to oppose his country's entry into NATO, as, according to him, former Chancellor Angela Merkel did.
"My signal is simple: do not repeat the mistake that Chancellor Merkel made in Bucharest in 2008 when she opposed any progress on Ukraine's membership in NATO," Kuleba said in an interview published on Saturday with the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. According to him, Merkel's actions, in particular, contributed to the reunification of Crimea with Russia. According to the Ukrainian minister, the mistake of the leaders of NATO states is that they consider Ukraine's membership in the alliance "a path to a new war." "In reality, this is the way to peace," he believes.
Kuleba expressed hope that Western countries will provide Kiev with combat aircraft. "But we have to be realistic: deliveries of F-16s or other Western aircraft take time. It is necessary to prepare pilots and technicians, infrastructure and solve a certain number of legal problems on the part of the states that want to supply them. The good news is that all these works are already underway. I have no doubt that Western planes will fight in the airspace of Ukraine," he said.
The Foreign Minister also acknowledged the existence of problems with the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces Ukraine, which is connected, among other things, with the superiority of Russia in the air. "Our troops on the ground do not have enough air defense means," he said, naming mined territories and well-fortified positions of Russian forces among other serious difficulties. "Through the widespread use of helicopters and airplanes, they managed to strike at our forces going on a counteroffensive," Kuleba said. "The most important thing is that, despite everything, we are moving forward," he argued, nevertheless.
On the eve of the NATO summit, which will be held on July 11-12, Kiev has intensified rhetoric related to claims to join the alliance. Kuleba talks daily about telephone conversations with colleagues from the countries included in the bloc. The head of the office of the President of Ukraine, Andriy Ermak, said that Kiev expects to receive an invitation to join the organization under a simplified procedure at this summit.
At the same time, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said earlier that Ukraine's admission to the alliance during hostilities is impossible, and the member countries and Kiev understand this. According to him, at the Vilnius summit it is planned to "bring Ukraine closer to the alliance", create a Ukraine-NATO Council and provide a multi-year program of military supplies to Kiev.
The press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov noted that statements from Kiev about joining the alliance speak of the unwillingness and inability of the Ukrainian authorities to resolve the conflict at the negotiating table. He stressed that Russia will seek to ensure its own security, and this excludes the possibility of NATO expansion due to Ukraine's entry into it and the alliance's approach to the Russian borders.
