Ukraine wants to receive NATO membership plan together with Georgia

Ukraine would like to receive the Membership Action
Plan (MAP) in NATO together with Georgia, PM Denys Shmyhal said in Brussels on
Feb. 9. “Today, of course, our short-term strategy is to obtain the
Membership Action Plan. We want to keep up with Georgia and, ideally, get the
MAP together with Georgia,” Shmyhal said at a press conference after talks
with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. According to Shmyhal, NATO
membership is an important priority for Ukraine, enshrined in its Constitution.
Ukraine’s PM also quoted Stoltenberg as saying that “achieving NATO standards
in the security and defense sector of Ukraine would be the precondition when we
get the opportunity to become a NATO full-fledged member.”

Yuri Svirko: Tying
Ukraine to Georgia in terms of future NATO membership might be a bad idea for
Kyiv. NATO membership for both countries has been put on hold since 2008. “NATO
welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in
NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO,”
declared the 20th NATO Summit in Bucharest in April 2008. “MAP is the next step
for Ukraine and Georgia on their direct way to membership. Today we make clear
that we support these countries’ applications for MAP.”

Almost 13 years after, MAP is still the next step
for Ukraine and Georgia. For the first six years after Bucharest, this delay had
been caused mainly by the Russian war in Georgia in August 2008 and the
occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. However, since 2014, Ukraine has been
facing its own Russian war and the occupation of Crimea and Donbas. Such
factors make NATO membership purely theoretical for both Kyiv and Tbilisi.
While Georgia is preparing to apply for the full EU membership in 2024, it
wants to use a NATO MAP for mapping its way to the European Union by copying
the approach taken by the Baltic states, Bulgaria and Romania. Ukraine would
gain more by highlighting the common border and common threats to its NATO/EU
neighbours and borrowing their experiences directly rather than by copying
Georgia and strengthening the joint image of Russia’s victims and neighbours.