Russia demands the cancellation of NATO’s decision in Bucharest regarding Ukraine to end the war

Russia demands the cancellation of NATO’s decision in Bucharest regarding Ukraine to end the war

Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Alexander Grushko stated that the refusal of Ukraine’s accession to NATO, promised to Kyiv in the declaration of the Bucharest summit in 2008, is one of the key elements for Russia in resolving the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Grushko is quoted by the Russian agency "Interfax".

Grushko stated that the potential membership of Ukraine in NATO "makes it impossible to achieve peace in Ukraine and, in a broader sense, to create any security architecture".

"For us, this is one of the key elements of a possible agreement regarding the conflict in Ukraine, an element related to eliminating the root causes of this conflict. We will seek not only ironclad international legal guarantees that would exclude in any way Ukraine’s membership in NATO, but we will also insist that this become the policy of the Alliance itself," he said to the channel "Russia-24".

He called the decision of the Bucharest NATO summit, which solidified at the highest level the Alliance’s intention to accept Ukraine and Georgia, "catastrophic for European security".

"The non-revoking of this formulation will create ambiguity, which is absolutely unacceptable for us when we talk about the need to achieve a viable, sustainable, ironclad resolution of the conflict in Ukraine and around it," said Grushko.

Recall that at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008, Ukraine and Georgia were denied a Membership Action Plan regarding membership in the Alliance, but the summit declaration stated that Ukraine and Georgia would one day nonetheless become NATO members.