Specific security guarantees for Ukraine are a prerequisite for any peace agreementwhich must be enshrined in a legally binding document, Ukrainian Ambassador to NATO Aľona Hetmanchuková told AFP, writes TASR.
“While for some of our partners the priority is to get the deal done and then sort out the security safeguards, for us it’s now a prerequisite to getting the deal done,” declared Heťmančuková. She added that for these guarantees to be truly effective, they must be contained in a “legally binding” document in the form of “a treaty with the United States and perhaps a few European states, a coalition of the willing.”
This text must also contain “strong enough wording, close” to that stated in Article 5 of the NATO Treaty establishing mutual assistance between allies in case of conflict, Heťmančuková added. However, the security guarantees will only be effective with the support of the United States, which is still very unclear at this stage, said the Ukrainian diplomat. According to her, Ukraine needs to know clearly what these guarantees can be.
Regarding European support for Ukraine, Hetmanchuk emphasized how important the ongoing discussions are for her country on the use of frozen Russian assets to finance a “reparation loan” for Kyiv.
“If there’s going to be a real paradigm shift right now, it’s in connection with the reparation loan,” she declared. It will help “change the intentions of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. He will understand that Ukraine will not collapse, as he hopes and as Russian propaganda tries to convince the Russian public and some of our partners,” Hetmanchukova emphasized.
The heads of state and government of the European Union discuss the plan to use approximately 200 billion euros from the assets of the Russian central bank frozen in the EU discuss next Thursday and Friday at their summit in Brussels.
