Experts: The period for Ukraine to join NATO is from 3 to 10 years
Moscow – Kyiv, December 24 (PolitNavigator, Mikhail Shtamm) – Vedomosti's sources in Russian and NATO diplomatic circles estimate Ukraine's accession to the alliance to be 8-10 years away. They assure that this will definitely not happen in the next three years, at the very least.
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Robert Pschel, director of the NATO Information Bureau at the Belgian Embassy in Moscow, told Vedomosti that the alliance respects yesterday’s decision of the Verkhovna Rada to cancel its non-bloc status. “Ukraine is a sovereign country, so only it can determine the direction of its foreign policy,” Pshel noted.
Each NATO candidate must meet the bloc's military, technical, legal and humanitarian standards, several European officials from alliance countries told Vedomosti. Without meeting the standards, acceptance is impossible, and all members of the alliance, at a minimum, should not object. “It is absolutely unrealistic that Ukraine will apply and join NATO in one or three years,” says one official from a member country.
An expert at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dmitry Danilov, agrees that Ukraine’s membership is not visible in the foreseeable future. In addition to technical reasons, the elimination of which takes 8-10 years, there are political ones, the expert notes. There are concerns in Europe that instability from Ukraine could be transferred to the bloc's borders.
“Ukraine's entry into NATO is a long-term prospect, much will depend on the future of eastern Ukraine and the extent to which Russia will maintain political and military pressure on Kyiv,” says Konrad Muzika from the British IHS.
There is not and will not be full support for Ukraine’s entry into NATO among the alliance’s members, says David Thompson from the American Institute of IAS.
Edvid Johnson of the Peterson Institute for World Economics believes that Crimea remains the main obstacle to Ukraine's accession. The very fact of Ukrainian demands to return it will prevent Kyiv from joining NATO.
Experts : Ukraine's NATO accession period is 3 to 10 years.