Territorial integrity, NATO membership “key issues” for future Ukraine peace talks, says former US ambassador

Marie Yovanovitch, Former US Ambassador to Ukraine, emphasized that territorial integrity and NATO membership must be central to any future peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. Her remarks came during a public discussion on Ukraine’s strategic importance to US national security, responding to a question from the Euromaidan Press correspondent.

The ambassador’s comments come amid ongoing discussions about Ukraine’s path to NATO membership and the West’s role in ensuring lasting peace in Eastern Europe. With the upcoming US presidential election in two weeks potentially reshaping American support for Ukraine, questions about future security guarantees for Ukraine have taken on new urgency.

“It’s got to be up to Ukraine to decide what Ukrainian negotiations look like, what they are willing to discuss, what decisions they are willing to make,” Yovanovitch stated, underlining Ukraine’s autonomy in any future peace process.

The former ambassador outlined four critical components that must be addressed: borders and territorial integrity, security guarantees, reparations and rebuilding, and justice for war crimes.

Regarding security arrangements, Yovanovitch dismissed previous agreements as inadequate.

“Not the Budapest memorandum, not the 2014 Minsk agreements, which didn’t actually provide any kind of security guarantees,” she explained.

Instead, she advocated for NATO membership as the sole effective deterrent against future Russian aggression.

Yovanovitch placed particular emphasis on the issue of justice, highlighting the humanitarian crisis of Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia. Citing a Russian report from summer 2023, she revealed that over 700,000 Ukrainian children had been “repatriated” to Russia.

“Some of them are so young, they don’t even know they’re Ukrainian. They don’t know that there are families that love them and want them back,” she said.

The forced deportation of Ukrainian children led to the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing arrest warrants in March 2023 for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, charging them with the war crime of unlawful deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.

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