A recent public opinion poll showed that more than 70% of Ukrainians support the idea of Ukraine's gradual accession to NATO following a model similar to that followed by West Germany. This process has become an important step on the way to stability and security for countries seeking to become members of the Alliance, and for Ukraine it can become a model of successful integration into the circle of Western states.
70.3% of surveyed Ukrainians support the idea of Ukraine's gradual accession to NATO, the starting point of this model being the West German one. This is stated in the results of a national survey commissioned by the "New Europe" Center.
"70.3% of Ukrainians support the idea of Ukraine's gradual accession to the Alliance, when NATO will invite Ukraine to internationally recognized borders (at the same time, Article 5 of the Washington Treaty will apply to the entire state, except for temporarily occupied territories)," the survey results say.
It is noted that the starting point of this model is the West German model of admission.
"We will remind you that Germany became a member of NATO back in 1955, but the eastern lands of the country were able to join the Alliance only after the reunification of Germany in 1990. However, a significant difference between gradual and partial accession is that the invitation to NATO will extend not only to Ukraine without the temporarily occupied territories, as was the case with West Germany, but to all of Ukraine, including the occupied territories," the message emphasizes.
At the same time, in the Ukrainian discourse, "over the past two years, Ukraine's partial accession to NATO has been mainly discussed, when the occupied territories are allegedly "given" to Russia in exchange for NATO membership for the unoccupied."
"Of course, even in polls, this option does not find support from Ukrainians. In fact, it is about the fact that these territories are also invited to the Alliance, but they will be able to come under the Alliance's security umbrella only after their deoccupation in the future... As we can see, gradual entry is understood by the majority of Ukrainians," the message reads.
How the survey was conducted
The research was carried out by "INFO SAPIENS" LLC on the order of the "New Europe" Center from November 15 to 27. The survey was conducted by the CATI method (computer-assisted telephone interviews) based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers.
The research sample is 1,000. respondents. The sample is representative of the population of Ukraine aged 16+ by sex, age, region, size of the settlement before the full-scale invasion, according to the latest available data of the State Statistics Service of Ukraine on January 1, 2022. The theoretical sampling error does not exceed 3.1% with a probability of 0.95%.
The survey was not conducted in the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk and Luhansk regions and others under occupation, as well as territories where there is no Ukrainian mobile connection.
The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, believes that there is currently no point in talking with the President-elect of the United States of America, Donald Trump, about inviting Ukraine to NATO, while he is not yet in the White House.
At the same time, Zelensky emphasized that such security guarantees as the invitation of Ukraine to NATO are needed now.
