The only reason Ukraine could abandon NATO is the absence of NATO - NATO Ambassador Hetmanchuk

The only reason Ukraine could abandon its ambition to become a NATO member is the absence of NATO itself. The newly appointed head of the Ukrainian mission to NATO, Aliona Hetmanchuk, announced this on Facebook, Ukrainian News Agency reports.

"I am deeply convinced that the only reason Ukraine could potentially abandon its ambition to become a NATO member would be the absence of NATO itself. Or its destruction from within or outside to such an extent that the Alliance simply ceased to be attractive and interesting for Ukrainians. But I believe that this will not happen," she wrote.

Hetmanchuk noted that NATO may change and transform, perhaps in the coming years there will be a more tangible European component against the backdrop of the increasing involvement of the US in the "sleeping mode" and the gradual withdrawal from the European contingent, the transformation of NATO into an Alliance that should take care primarily of European security.

She emphasized that in relations with NATO, Ukraine has reached a point when not only it has something to learn from NATO, but also NATO in Ukraine.

Hetmanchuk noted that she has an incredible responsibility to represent Ukraine in the Alliance at a time when the very possibility of having and realizing the prospect of Ukraine's membership in the Alliance is about much more than a fixed foreign policy course or security guarantees; it is, rather, about a guarantee of Ukraine's sovereignty, the right to choose, and the shortest (compared to the EU) and most understandable (including for the aggressor) way to finally fix Ukraine in the Euro-Atlantic coordinate system.

As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, on June 13, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed Aliona Hetmanchuk, director of the New Europe Center, as the head of Ukraine's mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), replacing Natalia Halibarenko.