Thank you for your question.
Certainly it's not an easy question to answer. The opportunities for Ukraine during the Orange Revolution and even prior—after the collapse of the U.S.S.R.—were great. The reason why perhaps it didn't materialize is twofold. I think we should admit, as folks in Ukraine do, that the leadership—the so-called leadership elite—at the time of the Orange Revolution did not seize the moment. The opportunities were there and not enough concrete steps were taken.
For example, as a former Canadian military officer—I'm retired now, but I can speak from experience—I was involved in various diplomatic missions under the auspices of NATO. After retirement, I was doing some not-for-profit work in the Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine, and there was a lot of rhetoric from President Yushchenko at the time and other Orange leaders, but very few concrete steps were taken to meet the requirements that were there.
I believe on the one hand that Ukrainian leadership didn't seize the moment and were not fast enough to react and to do what was necessary to integrate as quickly as possible into Europe.
On the other hand, I believe that the west—the European Union and NATO—also didn't react adequately. It had a moment and missed an opportunity. If you remember, at the Bucharest summit, on the question of Ukrainian membership, for example, even the action plan was discussed, and Germany and France de facto blocked it, did not provide a chance for Ukraine to adopt the membership plan for NATO. Excuses are many. You can talk about issues in Ukraine; there's democracy, there's human rights. We can talk about the state of the Ukrainian economy and so on and so forth.
If you look at other member states in eastern Europe that joined NATO—and there are many—they also had a number of reasons why they should not be accepted. There were problems with democracy and human rights and other problems like that. Yet the west decided to pull those states—whether it was Romania or other states—into its sphere of influence and then de facto force on them those democratic values and other standards that NATO and the European Union bring with them. I think they have had pretty favourable results. I believe that the west also had the chance, and it missed the opportunity after the Orange Revolution, to show Ukraine what it needed to do and that it was actually welcome.
I don't think it is too late. I believe that even though President Yanukovych, for example, states that he is not interested in Ukraine joining NATO, we remember that as a prime minister he said he was. It's possible he can reverse, and his successor definitely can. People in Ukraine are definitely pro-western, and I believe it's paramount for the west and Canada to show people in Ukraine and democratic forces that they're interested in Ukraine, that Ukraine is a European state, and that the west will do whatever is necessary to make sure Ukraine stays a pro-western state and democratic.
Thank you.