Defense minister: The sooner Ukraine enters NATO the better for it

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“I am completely sure that Ukraine, after defining its accession into NATO as its strategic goal, should be moving in this direction strategically and soon. The sooner it happens the better it will be for Ukraine,” Ukraine’s Defense Minister Anatoly Gritsenko said today speaking to reporters during periodical training of Ukrainian officers in Kiev, a REGNUM correspondent informs.

“I am still supporter of Ukraine’s full membership in NATO. Cooperation with the alliance is maximally effective today; it is held in accordance with the Ukraine-NATO action plan and the program of bilateral cooperation,” Anatoly Gritsenko said. He also noted that a more extended cooperation is planned for the next year. “There is legislation, there is mutually beneficial interest. The Ukrainian state and the Army will only gain from NATO cooperation – in equipping it technically and in training the personnel.”

It is worth mentioning, a draft law on dismissing Anatoly Gritsenko from the post of defense minister has been registered today at the Ukrainian parliament. As a note to the law says, the minister is to be dismissed on the basis of several inspections initiated by the president and the cabinet of ministers and conducted in the period from January 1, 2005 to July 1, 2006. Outcomes of the inspections, as the note says, say about unused reserves for receiving revenues as a result of distorted relations, deficiency of state reserves as a result of violation of the financial and budgetary discipline for total amount of over $1.3 billion and low level of management and control by the defense ministry.