Ukraine has many more guarantees from the international community now than it had before this week’s NATO summit in Vilnius, says President Gitanas Nausėda’s chief adviser.
“They now have much more than they had before Vilnius. I would measure by that,” Kęstutis Budrys, the president’s national security adviser, told the radio Žinių Radijas on Thursday.
The point of comparison, he insisted, should not be the Bucharest summit of 2008, where Ukraine was first promised NATO membership, but what guarantees Kyiv had before this week.
“And here we could identify up to ten positions” where President Volodymyr Zelensky secured wins at the summit with, according to Budrys.
He stressed that the wording of the Bucharest summit declaration was not backed by “the will and actions on the ground”.
“At Bucharest, Ukraine and Georgia were seeking a membership roadmap, they wanted the accession process to be opened. So now in Vilnius we are saying that you will not need a Membership Action Plan,” said Budrys.
“Today, a lot of things are happening on the ground through practical support, supply of weapons, all kinds of bilateral cooperation, training and so on,” he added.
At the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania achieved all it had set out to do at the start of the year, according to Budrys.
NATO leaders decided on Tuesday that an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance would be extended “when allies agree and conditions are met”.
They also agreed to remove the Membership Action Plan (MAP) requirement for Ukraine, decided to set up a NATO-Ukraine Council, and approved a multiannual program of assistance to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
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