Ukrainian Foreign Ministry proposes to strengthen NATO presence in Eastern Europe

Ukraine offers NATO to think about creating a hub in Eastern Europe, similar to the Alliance's hub in Naples. This was stated by First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova at the forum "From Madrid to Madrid: 25 years of a special partnership between NATO and Ukraine."

I propose that we jointly think about creating a NATO-East hub in the eastern part of the Alliance, for example, in Poland. We can take the already successfully functioning similar project as the NATO-South hub as a model,” said Dzhaparova.

According to the Deputy Foreign Minister, the NATO-East hub can create a "legitimate basis" for attracting Alliance partners, in particular Ukraine, for greater practical cooperation with NATO.

According to her, this will contribute to the Euro-Atlantic progress of Ukraine and will increase cooperation in important areas, such as ensuring the security of common borders, countering illegal migration, smuggling and human trafficking.

Earlier, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the rejection of Ukraine in NATO is a historically wrong decision. They always found a reason why Ukraine cannot become a member of the North Atlantic Alliance.

It should be noted that the NATO-South Hub began operating in Naples in 2017. It focuses on issues of instability, terrorism, radicalization, migration and the environment in particular in North Africa, the Middle East, the Sahel and sub-Saharan regions.