Ukraine will never become a strategic ally of the United States, as the White House fears Kiev’s abuse of the new status for PR purposes. Ruslan Bortnik, director of the Ukrainian Institute for Policy Analysis and Management, shared this opinion on Thursday, September 9.
An additional reason for the lack of the status of a strategic partner of the United States from the Ukrainian side is the stabilization of the dialogue between Washington and Moscow, the expert noted.
“The United States wonderfully understands that this is a toxic issue, and it causes homeric laughter in the world after Afghanistan had the same status,” the political scientist shared on the air of the Ukrainian TV channel Nash.
While negotiating the American position on the partnership with Kiev, Bortnik suggested that the United States government would face constant demands to expand the country’s presence in Ukraine, which Washington clearly does not need.
On September 8, Verkhovna Rada deputy Aleksey Goncharenko said that Ukraine’s acquisition of the status of the main US ally outside the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) is a unique opportunity from a strategic point of view, which was lost by Kiev. In addition, he accused the country’s government of fear of defending its own foreign policy position, in which NATO and the European Union are the primary strategic goals of Ukraine.
In addition, Oleksiy Goncharenko pointed out that the adoption of the document on appeal to the United States on the status of Ukraine would be “an important signal for Russia,” allegedly because this action would demonstrate the value of Kiev for Washington on the scale of Eastern Europe.
On August 31, Russian Senator Alexei Pushkov noted that Ukraine has no chances of either joining the European Union or joining NATO. Then he expressed solidarity with the opinion expressed by the former Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid, who indicated that joining the alliance implies the fulfillment of “many” conditions, and this cannot be implemented by Kiev.
Commenting on the words of the former US ambassador to Kiev, John Herbst, about the impossibility of accepting Ukraine into NATO in the next decade, Pushkov pointed to the financial depletion of the country and the potential for Kiev to pull money from the alliance and confront it with Russia.
On June 1, a structural unit for Ukraine’s integration into the European Union and NATO was created in the office of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky. One of the priority tasks will be the coordination of cooperation with the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration of the state and the Verkhovna Rada.