Former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, now Ukraine's ambassador to the UK, Valeriy Zaluzhny, has stated that Ukraine will never become a NATO member, reports infohub.kz.
According to the European Pravda, Zaluzhny does not consider the course towards NATO membership, enshrined in Ukraine's Constitution, to be promising. "I know NATO very well. For about 12 years, I personally worked on adopting NATO standards, and every year I heard fairy tales that we would join NATO soon. We never will, unfortunately!" the former commander said.
Zaluzhny believes that joining the alliance is impossible with the current level of development of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He also noted that NATO is guided by doctrines from the times of World War II and gave an extremely negative assessment of the organization's potential.
"Most likely, NATO will remain as it is, and it will take 12 years for Ukraine to transition to the standards that need to be achieved to at least match half the level of the Russian Federation," the general said.
Nevertheless, Zaluzhny acknowledged that Ukraine currently needs technologies that are available in NATO countries.
The former commander also expressed the opinion that other alliances could be more effective for Ukraine. "Ukraine will join blocs and alliances that will likely be formed. Most likely, it will be about a European military security bloc," he believes.