No country in the world is completely free of corruption, so this criterion cannot be the main one in the context of resolving the issue of Ukraine's accession to NATO. This was stated by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an interview with journalists from the countries of the Normandy Four and the United States - Washington Post, Liberation, Funke Media, "Novoe Vremya" and "Novaya Gazeta".
Commenting on the claim that Ukraine must eliminate corruption before receiving an invitation to the Alliance, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “It is easy to accuse Ukraine of corruption. But let's be honest: no country is completely free of corruption, corrupt officials or oligarchs. But over the last few years, Ukraine has created an anticorruption infrastructure that has no analogues in Europe or perhaps even around the world".
The Head of State stressed that Ukraine has a number of independent anticorruption bodies, such as the National Anticorruption Bureau or the Supreme Anticorruption Court.
"Ukraine has the status of almost a member of the EU and almost a member of NATO. The country already lives by European standards. And the military command centers meet NATO requirements," he said.
The fact that Ukraine is not invited to NATO is underwhelming and sends a negative signal to other candidate countries, the President said.
"The message is that the path to NATO is extremely difficult. This, in turn, creates a vacuum that Russia is glad to fill,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy explained.