President's Office insists process of Ukraine's accession to EU and NATO is linked

The Office of the President of Ukraine does not believe that the opinion that Ukraine's accession to the EU and NATO are separate processes is reasonable.

Ihor Zhovkva, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, insists that the option of Ukraine's withdrawal from NATO is not on the agenda, and Kyiv insists on the possibility of moving forward on this path before the end of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"Negotiations on receiving an invitation to join NATO at this stage will continue," Zhovkva said during the presentation of a survey of Ukrainians on the mood of Ukrainian society in the areas of foreign policy and security.

Ihor Zhovkva also commented on the results of a survey, which shows that the majority of Ukrainians believe that joining NATO and the EU are not linked and that, therefore, Ukraine can join the European Union without joining the Alliance. The deputy head of the President’s Office disagreed with this opinion.

"These are absolutely related issues – integration into NATO and the EU. We can talk a lot about whether it is possible to join the EU without NATO, and there are indeed countries that are members of the EU but not NATO, but obviously, this is not the case for Ukraine. We have already made sure that neutrality is unacceptable for us," he added.

Earlier, another survey showed that only 20% of Ukrainians do not believe that Ukraine will join NATO.