“The NATO membership referendum would be a brick in the foundation of Ukraine’s national security”

Den’s Summer School is now working at peak intensity. The students had a special lecture on July 28, delivered by Yevhen Marchuk, a man with truly impressive public service experience. During the hours-long discussion, the students were most interested in the effectiveness of the “Minsk format” talks, which, incidentally, Marchuk is directly involved with, the OSCE special mission’s activities, and likelihood of the combat zone expansion and Russia going on the offensive.

“We see an enclave of sorts emerging in the Donbas,” Marchuk said answering a student’s question. “This conflict cannot be called frozen, but rather put on hold, because it, unfortunately, will stay hot.”

The statesman also opined on the Ukrainian government and public’s understanding of the West’s policy and Ukraine’s prospects of joining NATO. Specifically in this latter regard, Marchuk believes that Ukraine needs to hold the NATO membership referendum. “At the same time, we must understand that the membership itself will not happen next year, but the vote will provide the present and future political leadership with a strategic document. People are working on this initiative now. I think that active campaign to shape public opinion on this issue will start in late September. As things are standing now, it is the only guarantee of our national security and future survival. Nothing else can work with such neighbors as Russia is. The referendum would be a giant brick in the foundation of our national security.”

Den’s guest also stated that Ukraine should not rely too much on the international community, because we have created a kind of colorful myth, thinking that the whole world is concerned with the Ukrainian issue. “I faced it in the fall of 2003. There was an illusion then that the Budapest Memorandum would work. The Ukrainian party appealed to the UN Security Council, but it had no direct relationship to the memorandum. They told us then that Russia was also a signatory to that document. I, as the minister of defense, made it clear for myself back then that the Budapest Memorandum did not work and there was no hope to transform it into a binding international agreement,” Marchuk believes.

The record of the students’ conversation with Marchuk will be published in full in Den’s coming issues.

Daria TRAPEZNIKOVA, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv:

“The conversation with Marchuk was, in my opinion, the most informative and thorough talk of all held during our stay in the Summer School. While we journalism students are often more knowledgeable and understand a little more than our peers because of our professional orientation, we still find it difficult to grasp the world as a whole. Our lecturer clarified many confusing and contradictory details in the events and phenomena that are now taking place in Ukraine and around the globe. I offer my most sincere thanks to Den for this opportunity to discuss our most pressing concerns with the man who played a significant role in the modern history of Ukraine.”

Dmytro PLAKHTA, Ivan Franko Lviv National University:

“The Minsk format negotiations are the talk of the town now. They are discussed in print and electronic media daily, hourly, and every minute. However, reading analytical journalistic contributions, viewing various talk shows, and rereading reflections of pseudo-experts on Facebook – all of these pale next to an opportunity to talk at a roundtable with Marchuk, who is intimately involved with the Minsk talks. He immediately emphasized that it was media themselves who often created crises out of the blue, and went on to illustrate it by explaining the situation around Shyrokyne and discussing the 30-kilometer buffer zone and other proposals to be debated in Minsk soon. Such a lecture, involving in-depth analysis from a top-level expert, would be a priori useful not only to us ‘summer scholars,’ but to all the journalists and the rest of the nation as well.”