Oleksiy Danilov: Ukraine’s Main Strategic Partners Are United Kingdom, United States, and Baltic States

Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov considers the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to be Ukraine’s main strategic partners.

“The United Kingdom ranks first, followed by the United States and the Baltic states. There are also Poland and others but until a certain point: if we show weakness, some of them may cease to be friendly to us,” Danilov said in an interview with Forbes, answering the journalist’s question about Ukraine’s strategic partners.

At the same time, Danilov did not name France and Germany which play a leading role in peace talks with the Russian Federation. The Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council considers these states “morally responsible” for the Russian occupation of Ukraine’s territory.

“The French, for example, dealt with negotiations between Georgia and Russia in 2008. As a result, the Georgians lost part of their territory, and the French received orders for Mistral from Russia. I don’t know if they got something for part of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and Crimea, but there is a moral responsibility. I am not a diplomat, and no one forbids me to call a spade a spade. Russia attacked Georgia and Ukraine after those countries had blocked our NATO membership action plans in Bucharest in 2008. When we meet behind closed doors with German and French representatives in Kyiv, I tell them about it,” the Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council added.

At the same time, he noted that Germany has recently “changed its tone” towards Ukraine.

Moreover, Danilov believes that Russia continues to consolidate the results of its occupation and drags the Ukrainian territories under its control into its political, economic, electoral, social, and cultural space, in particular by issuing Russian passports.

According to the Ukrainian side, about 630,000 passports have already been issued to residents of the occupied territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. According to Danilov, in this way, the Kremlin wants to get additional votes in the State Duma elections, although it understands that passportisation in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions violates the Minsk agreements.

Bohdan Marusyak