Ukraine rejects any efforts to get it to scrap its plans to join NATO as well as any “guarantee” sought by Russia to ease tensions on the border, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told AFP on Friday. Agreeing to abandon its plans to join the alliance “is not an option” for Kiev, Kuleba told AFP in an interview on the sidelines of an OSCE meeting in Stockholm. NATO officially opened the door to Ukraine membership in 2008, though no progress has been made since. “It’s absolutely inappropriate for Russia to have any influence on decisions taken by another sovereign country, Ukraine, and another international organisation, NATO,” Kuleba added. “We have a golden rule in Ukrainian diplomacy: no decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine.

Source: The Guardian December 03, 2021 22:22 UTC