THE NATO-UKRAINE CHARTER - KIEVS EURO-ATLANTIC INTEGRATION

As a country renouncing nuclear weapons, Ukraine initially sought a ne utral status and, like Russia, set about viewing NATO as its adversary . Its attitude towards the alliance has changed considerably over the years. The determinant political forces in Kiev(Kyiv) increasingly tur ned to NATO in an effort to establish ties which were as close as poss ible. The result of these efforts is a NATO-Ukraine Charter, which, in contrast to the NATO-Russia Founding Act, is not orientated to safegu ards against the alliance, but to a process of convergence. In the fol lowing article, Olga Alexanderova of the Federal Institute for East Eu ropean and International Studies in Cologne analyses the document from a primarily Ukrainian perspective.