Ukrainian President’s Office says there will be no word “assurances” in “security guarantees” for Ukraine
Pravda Ukraine
The Ukrainian President’s Office has stated that the security guarantees that Ukraine hopes to receive from Western countries will not feature the word “assurances”.
Source: European Pravda; Ihor Zhovkva, Deputy Chief of the Ukrainian President’s Office, in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine news agency
Quote: “We call it ‘guarantees’. And we will make sure that our partners embrace this word as well. We remember the Budapest Memorandum, which also referred to guarantees at first, and then… The word “assurances” will definitely not be in any of our documents.”
Details: The official noted an excellent dynamic in the negotiations with the UK, with whom, as he said, a “very substantive” conversation took place.
“I cannot disclose the details, but the UK is on a solid track, just as, actually, we have opened negotiations with all the G7 countries,” Zhovkva said.
Zhovkva stressed that Kyiv wants the guarantees to be a legally binding document and to go through the appropriate approval procedures in each country.
“The process is underway; we need the guarantees as soon as possible, yet there must be a balance between the promptness of signing and the content of the document itself… We definitely do not need another Budapest Memorandum. Unfortunately, this document did not work either during Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in 2014 or Russia’s full-scale aggression in 2022,” Zhovkva concluded.
Background:
- Last week, on Thursday, Ukraine and Germany held the fourth round of consultations on a bilateral agreement on security guarantees for Kyiv.
- Previously, Ukraine held a second round of consultations with the United Kingdom to conclude a bilateral agreement on providing security guarantees to Kyiv.
- Before that, Dmytro Kuleba, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, said that he had received signals from the EU that there were no problems in the negotiations on a bilateral agreement on “security guarantees” between the EU and Ukraine in continuation of the G7 declaration.
- At the NATO summit in Vilnius, the G7 countries agreed on a framework document on “security guarantees” for Ukraine. Specific bilateral agreements with countries that agree to provide security guarantees will be signed later.
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