“US President-elect Donald Trump’s statement that Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine because of its desire to join NATO does not correspond to the data of sociological surveys. This was announced by the director of the KMIS, Volodymyr Paniotto. “The claim that Ukraine “provoked” Russia to attack with its desire to join NATO is false. In fact, the desire of Ukraine to join NATO appeared as a reaction to”, — write on: ua.news
US President-elect Donald Trump’s statement that Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine because of its desire to join NATO does not correspond to the data of sociological surveys.
This was announced by the director of the KMIS, Volodymyr Paniotto.
“The claim that Ukraine “provoked” Russia to attack with its desire to join NATO is false. In fact, Ukraine’s desire to join NATO appeared as a reaction to Russia’s aggression,” he wrote.
As the sociologist noted, indeed, Ukraine submitted an application for the NATO Membership Action Plan (AAP) in 2008, but it was rejected precisely for the reasons of taking into account the interests of Russia.
“But the prospects of Ukraine joining NATO were completely unrealistic before Russia’s aggression in 2014, society was categorically against this idea,” he wrote.
Paniotto cited data according to which only 15-20% of the population supported Ukraine’s accession to NATO by 2014, and most politicians did not even include this item in their election programs, as it was unpopular.
“Putin was very popular in Ukraine, with a positive attitude towards him of about 60% of the population, then the most popular Ukrainian politicians, in particular Tymoshenko and Yanukovych, on the eve of the 2010 presidential elections, had the support of no more than 30%,” the sociologist recalled.
According to him, the positive attitude of Ukrainians towards Russia was even higher – about 90%, which made joining NATO almost impossible from the point of view of public support.
“It is important to recall that the issue of NATO was not even a demand of protesters during the Revolution of Dignity of 2013-2014 (and even joining the EU was demanded by a significantly smaller number of protesters than ensuring dignity and justice),” he added.
As Paniotto noted, the situation changed dramatically after the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.
“This act of aggression caused a significant increase in support for Ukraine’s accession to NATO among the population, reaching 48%,” the sociologist stated.
It will be recalled that on January 7, US President-elect Donald Trump stated that Vladimir Putin constantly stressed that Ukraine should not have any ties with NATO.
“It was like it was carved in stone. And then Biden said that Ukraine should be able to join NATO. In this way, Russia gets NATO right at its doorstep,” he said.
According to Trump, it was Biden’s statements that led to the war. Thus, he placed responsibility for launching a full-scale Russian invasion of the current US administration.
Earlier, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Andriy Sybiga, regarding the postponement of Kellogg’s visit, said that now the parties are working on defining “the time limits of the visit and filling it with maximum content.”
We previously wrote that Donald Trump’s future special representative for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, was supposed to visit Ukraine in early January, but postponed his familiarization trip to Kyiv and other European capitals.
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