Over 150 scholars worldwide urge NATO to invite Ukraine to join Alliance

Scientists worldwide called on NATO to invite Ukraine to join the Alliance.

Rubryka reports that this is stated in an open letter published in The Guardian newspaper, signed by 158 scientists from around the world.

"Inviting Ukraine to join Nato would mark a definitive step away from the politics of appeasement and back to the rule of international law and protection of human rights. A decision to extend security guarantees to Ukraine would not only safeguard the Ukrainian state, via the only means yet shown to be successful, but would also reassert NATO and the Western democracies as effective political agents on the world stage," the letter reads.

According to scholars, the arguments against Ukraine's NATO membership, which have been made repeatedly since the beginning of Russia's attack on Ukraine in 2014, ultimately repeat the same concern: that any step, however small, will be seen as a threat to Russia's security and therefore provoke a larger conflict.

In addition, the letter says the idea that the expansion of security guarantees for Ukraine will further stimulate the brutal continuation of this war by Russia is unfounded since Russia is already completely determined to destroy Ukraine and does not need additional motivation for this.

"The focus on Russia's' alleged "Nato expansion anxiety", and attempts to appease it, ignore Russia's' genocidal propaganda and systematic war crimes in occupied territory of Ukraine, including massacres, mass rape and torture. Russia's actions demonstrate a clear intent to destroy Ukraine as a nation, rather than to alleviate its own security concerns," the scientists said.

Secondly, it is a fact that Russia has not attacked a single NATO member.

"Instead, it has threatened, invaded and occupied non-member countries: Georgia, Moldova and now Ukraine," the scientists note.

Finally, it is emphasized that attempts to appease the Kremlin did not affect Russia's determination to maintain the anti-Western global coalition.

"Russia already fully controls Belarus and has been actively forming its own alliances with China, North Korea, and Iran, which stand for the destruction of the democratic order. Russia bombed Syrian cities to keep Bashar al-Assad (a dictator who used chemical weapons against civilians) in power," the scientists added.

What is known about Ukraine's accession to NATO

We will remind that on September 30, 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal signed Ukraine's application for accelerated NATO accession.

Already in 2023, a summit of NATO countries was held in Vilnius on July 11 and 12, and Ukraine was one of the main topics.

In the final communiqué of the summit, published on the Alliance website, the Heads of State and Government of the North Atlantic Alliance recognized Ukraine's progress on the path of Euro-Atlantic integration and confirmed that Ukraine's future lies with NATO.

Also, 287 NATO standards have already been implemented in the Ukrainian Security and Defense Forces. By the end of 2023, they plan to implement about 200 North Atlantic Alliance standards.

Recently, the Ministry of Defense created a two-tier procurement system based on NATO standards.

There are 1135 standards in the North Atlantic Alliance, and as of the end of November 2023, Ukraine had implemented about a quarter of them.

It will be recalled that Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna said that the USA and Germany oppose Ukraine's official invitation to NATO.