Despite Ukraine Not a member of NATO, it has spent years joining this military alliance formed in 1949, and its growing presence in Eastern Europe has made the Russian President, Vladimir Putin quoted the Slavic country to justify his large-scale invasion. However, the effect it achieved was partially and for the time being the opposite. Since then, Ukraine has strengthened its ties with the Atlantic Alliance, although membership is unlikely in the short term. The first witness to this was the ambassador of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. Yehor Cherniev, deputy chairman of the National Security Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament and head of the Ukrainian delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Speaking with El Periódico de Catalunya of the Prensa Ibérica group from Kiev, Cherniev had a long conversation in which he detailed the place Ukraine occupies in the geostrategic tableau today.
In March, Zelensky acknowledged that the NATO door was closed, but later called for Ukraine’s expedited entry into this military establishment.
We believe that the only way for Ukraine to join NATO is to achieve a lasting peace in Europe. Because with such an aggressive neighbor, if Ukraine continues to remain in a kind of gray zone, Russia will try to attack us again. So now we are working for the NATO summit in Vilnius (to be held in July), we are making many reforms and we are also waiting for concrete steps from NATO towards Ukraine.
Do you think this is a realistic goal? Aren’t you afraid of something like this rhetorical conflict?
We know that no country will accept Ukraine’s entry into NATO before the war is over. But there has been a change of attitude. If by February 24 (2022, the day the large-scale Russian invasion began), our allies are no longer telling us that if they only told us about the reforms that Ukraine still had to make or that it was important not to provoke (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, it was impossible, because with the sanctions, it would be impossible to deal with Russia. economic relationship was broken. Another argument is that Ukraine today has a large number of Western weapons and can meet NATO standards. Ukraine becomes a de facto part of NATO. Today, there is the so-called Rammstein format (Contact Group for the defense of Ukraine), in which almost all NATO countries participate to help us in the shipment of different types of weapons.
Does everyone in your party and government agree?
The current Ukrainian Constitution (thanks to the 2019 reform) states that joining NATO is a possible path. And the support of the Ukrainians to this income was 53% before the invasion, today it is 86%. I think that says it all.
Are there NATO personnel in Ukraine?
No, as far as I know.
Let’s talk about Leopard tanks. How are the trainings going? When will they start using them in Ukraine?
The reports we’ve received say that training is progressing faster than expected. We also thank Spain for this. I think we’ll soon see units being trained for a (new) counterattack.
Recently, US media suggested, citing US intelligence sources, that the Nord Stream pipeline may have been blown up by pro-Ukrainian saboteurs. Ukraine denied this. What’s behind this story? What are you thinking?
I think it was an operation that required a very high technical capability, operating at that depth (at sea), placing those explosives and doing it without noticing Russia, which has sensors that collect all the information coming from the ships. stop by Ukraine has no such capacity, neither at the state level nor at the private level. Therefore, this information does not correspond to reality.
So why do you think this hypothesis was put forward?
This should be asked of the USA. Our position is that Russia is responsible and they are doing this to cut gas supplies to Europe.
It was also said that this sabotage could question Europe’s support for Ukraine.
In Europe, I think they fully understand that they cannot trust a dictator, especially when it comes to energy, beyond the fact that all these decisions (rejecting Russian gas) were taken before this sabotage. Even Germany, which is heavily dependent on Russian gas, has done so, and I don’t think this relationship will improve for at least another 10 years. So I don’t think it will change anything.
You are also a computer expert. How is the cyber war going?
In a way, I think we can count ourselves lucky. Since 2014, Russia has attacked us several times and this has strengthened us because we were able to create an effective cybersecurity system even before the invasion. This explains why almost none of the nearly 2,000 attacks we have faced since the beginning of the occupation have been successful at the national level. For example, they were able to access some local web pages from city halls. But the banking system, the financial system and all our data systems are working.
And did Ukraine use these tools to attack Russia?
Officially… no. But we have many supporters around the world helping us.
Is it utopian or not to think that this war will end this 2023?
It depends on the amount of weapons we get and the speed at which we get them. We must also take into account that the power of Russia is not unlimited, Moscow has limits, including economic ones. According to their own data, they ran a deficit of more than $30 billion in January and February. That’s more than their deficit in a year. That’s why they want this war to end and will try to move forward as quickly as possible. We will do the same.