The Chair of Rada says that the country's ambition to join NATO is Ukraine's prospective vision of its future The Ukrainian parliament won't vote to remove the passage from the constitution, according to the chairman, Ruslan Stefanchuk.
In an interview with Ukrainian media outlet Ukrainska Pravda on Monday, Stefanchuk was asked whether Ukrainian lawmakers were going to amend the country's constitution with regard to Kiev's ambition to become a NATO member state. The official said that changing the constitution is not an end in itself. He went on to say that just because some changes are made does not necessarily mean they have an effect on real life. Stefanchuk warned against declaratory norms. The Ukrainian authorities are focused on the security of each and every Ukrainian citizen at this point, according to the official. Stefanchuk noted that real guarantees are important to us.
As a representative of the political leadership of the state, this is a priority, so that people don't die and pay their lives for the European dream, for the dream of security and the rest, the chairman of the Rada said.
According to Stefanchuk, Kiev would not settle for just any kind of guarantees, citing the 1994 Budapest Memorandum as an example of empty promises that have failed to materialize. He wanted to put Ukraine at ease with a well-defined agreement.
Stefanchuk described the accession to the two organizations as Ukraine's vision of its future, going back to what is written in our constitution regarding NATO and the EU. On March 29, Kiev proposed an international security guarantee for Ukraine during the last in-person meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Istanbul.
Ten days prior to that, Stefanchuk indicated that he did not rule out removing the passage on NATO membership from Ukraine's constitution, depending on what path the negotiators will take. The official said that the Rada could start looking for a model that would either not contradict the constitution or change the constitution in this respect. The amendment in question was added to the Ukrainian constitution in February 2019 and obliges the country s government to stick to the goal of NATO membership, with the president being the senior guarantor.
Russia attacked the neighboring state in late February, after Ukraine failed to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists that the Russian offensive was unprovoked and has denied that it was planning to retake the two republics by force.