Ukraine and Georgia will become NATO members, an expert says

By Vestnik Kavkaza

“NATO doesn’t intend to give guarantees of non-accession of Ukraine and Georgia to the alliance,” the Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg stated yesterday.

Stoltenberg reported that the alliance has extended its activity near its eastern borders and agreed with the Georgian government on construction of a new training center for the Georgian army in Tbilisi and opened five trust foundations to support defense reform in Ukraine.

In this context Alexander Gusev, the head of the Center for Strategic Development of the CIS Countries of the RAS Institute for Europe, stated that “the Ukrainian crisis will be settled quickly; moreover, the eighth Verkhovna Rada denounced two very serious documents: the agreements which were signed in the Bialowieza forest and the agreement on friendship and cooperation with the RF. Probably in the near future the Rada will return to consideration of an amendment to the Constitution 1996 on eliminating the non-aligned status of Ukraine.”

Commenting on NATO's position, Gusev stated: “NATO will strive for the involvement of Ukraine. I think it is a matter of time. I am absolutely sure that Ukraine and Georgia will soon become members of NATO,” the expert said, adding that in Moldova the situation won’t be so simple, and the question will be settled in a referendum.

According to Gusev, the main task of the USA is preventing Russia from strengthening in the post-Soviet space: “I remember Hillary Clinton’s speech on December 12th, 2012. A few days before leaving the White House, she said that the USA wouldn’t let Russia create a constructive Eurasian model in the post-Soviet space. And today the American administration is doing its best to fulfil the program.”

Gusev thinks that the policy of the White House was started in the 1990s: “The problem of eliminating the agreements which were reached by the USA and the Soviet Union, the USA and the leading Western European countries in April-June 1989. I was present at the meeting and I am a witness of the processes which touched on the reunion of Germany. In this context, the issue of the further functioning of NATO in Europe was discussed. All representatives of the Western countries stated that there would be no extension. I recall that the number of the alliance’s members was 16 at that time. Today there are 28 of them.”