Ukraine as demilitarized state out of the question – Arestovych

Ukraine cannot be a demilitarized state like Sweden or Austria.

"Every country in the world, according to the UN Charter, has the right to self-defense. We in Ukraine, both the people and the government, understand very clearly that our self-defense forces must be independent, self-sufficient, because no one can be relied on. Therefore, a demilitarized state here is out of the question," Oleksiy Arestovych, a non-staff adviser to the Head of the President's Office, said in an interview with Radio Liberty.

Arestovych believes that the idea of ​​creating a demilitarized state in Ukraine, following the example of Sweden or Austria, is "unacceptable" because our country is in a completely different situation.

"Sweden and Austria are surrounded by ‘decent neighbors’ of Europeans who pursue stable policies and do not want to change borders, while Ukraine is a country that has been deceived twice. Our neutral status was enshrined in the Declaration of Sovereignty, and then in the Budapest Memorandum, which was signed after the world's third nuclear capability was surrendered. It was a huge argument in favor of military-political power, we were a superpower," the non-staff adviser to the Head of the President's Office underscored.

He added that all the Budapest Memorandum guarantors, not only Russia, had in fact deceived Ukraine. According to him, Ukraine is currently in a hot phase of hostilities because all guarantors did not fulfill their guarantees.

Earlier, Russia stated that they could consider Ukraine's status as a demilitarized country with its own army following the example of Sweden as a compromise with Kyiv.

A large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has been going on since February 24.

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