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Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba says that there are no specific deadlines for Ukraine's accession to the EU and NATO and it is only a matter of time.

"I can safely say that the issue of our membership in the EU and NATO is a matter of time. But we should not set any targets for ourselves, not to be disappointed in a failure to reach them yet again," Kuleba said in an interview with Radio Liberty.

In this context, he stated that no deadlines existed.

"No one in any country has ever said that [Ukraine] will join [EU and NATO] by such a date. They have always said, you have to do this and that, then you will join. Let's be realistic. There are countries in the EU that are skeptical about Ukraines membership prospect because they think that we are too big, we will be too competitive as the EU members. And because they still see the picture of Eastern Europe through the prism of the influence of the Russian Federation," the minister noted.

He added that a few years ago there were more such countries than now. And Ukrainian diplomats will work with the remaining ones.

As reported, Ukraine's strategic course towards full membership in NATO is enshrined in the Constitution.

On April 6, during a conversation with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, President Volodymyr Zelensky called the NATO Membership Action Plan the most pressing issue for Kyiv and a real signal for Russia.

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FM Kuleba: Ukraine's membership in EU and NATO is matter of time - Ukrinform. Ukraine and world news

For sure Im disappointed, but Im the kind of person player who knows you can't change anything once it's happened. We have World Cup qualifiers happening this fall, so the focus is on restarting, improving and fixing our mistakes.

"Obviously there were mistakes on our part that we need to put right, and we need to work on how we can take our game to the next level, how we can compete. You have to move on but its hard for sure. Personally, it was also upsetting, as it feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and youre not sure when the next one will come. Still, you have to put it behind you and just keep moving on and see what you can do next.

The words are those of Nicole Kozlova, who was reflecting on Ukraine's agonising failure to reach the UEFA Womens EURO in an interview with FIFA.com. In their play-off last month, the eastern Europeans lost 4-1 on aggregate to Northern Ireland, ending their hopes of a second EURO appearance after their 2009 debut.

But, as the old adage goes, when one door shuts, another one opens. And just last Friday, the European qualifying draw for the FIFA Women's World Cup Australia/New Zealand 2023 unfolded, placing Ukraine in Group B alongside Spain, Scotland, Hungary and the Faroe Islands.

"At first glance you think: wow, thats a tough group," Kozlova said. "For example, Ive never played against Spain or Hungary, although we have faced Scotland a few times, so its a mix of new and challenging teams.

"But in football, anyone can win on their day. You see it more and more and in the mens game as well. The gap has narrowed, which proves that anybody can beat anybody.

"I think if we have the right mentality, set up well and everyone does all they can, then we have a chance. You can never say we dont have a chance. We have to give everything and make the best out of it so that hopefully well get another once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

In 31st place on the FIFA/Coca-Cola Women's World Ranking, Ukraine may not be the favourites to win the group, but the 20-year-old is banking on the collective strength of a team renowned for its passion and fighting spirit under coach Nataliia Zinchenko.

"Anytime theres a game on TV, we watch it together and learn more about the game," said Kozlova. "We all read books about this and that coach, their tactics and so on. I just love seeing that passion. We always put up a fight and, while we may not be the most technically gifted side, we really battle. Thats who we are and you kind of have to embrace that fact. But as long as we have that attitude, well get the results."

Kozlova brings unique experience to the team, albeit more in terms of physicality than mentality. Toronto-born and raised, the striker currently plays for Virginia Tech in the USA and has benefitted from a particular type of training there.

"Over here theyre very focused on the athletic side especially the college teams," she said. "You come in and its fitness test after fitness test. Its really based on the pace of the game. Just look at the US womens national team. They maintain a high press for the full 90 minutes, but that takes a special level of fitness.

"Thats what I bring when I join up for training camps my best form and condition as well as an intensity and pace of play. Attitude-wise, its a game of football and its kind of the same everywhere the passion and love for the game, even if you might look at the game a bit differently.

"But honestly, I dont think that I bring anything that different. Everybody has their own skills, which is why its the most popular sport in the world. Everybody can play; indeed everybody does play, and differently."

Kozlova, who made her international debut in 2019, is also aware that she is benefiting from the opportunities offered to her by Canada and the USA. In Ukraine, those kinds of opportunities are still limited for young girls, even if women's football is slowly moving in the right direction.

"Were just trying to grow its popularity," she said. "The base is not going to grow if you don't have a lot of young girls playing. The number of girls that stick with the game is small even here in Canada. Among the girls I played with when I was 14, 15, some of them have left and maybe four or five of us are still serious about the sport. Even with a big pool of players, its getting smaller and smaller.

"In Ukraine you really need that base, but they dont really have it at the moment. But thats changing. They recently made it obligatory for professional mens teams to have a womens team as well, so it is slowly changing."

That initiative will surely pay dividends in the long term, something Kozlova also has one eye on with her studies, having majored in computational modelling and data analysis, and minored in mathematics.

"Ive always been a kind of analyst," she said. "Its always made sense to me and I often joke about it on the pitch. If theres a free-kick Im like: I need to hit from this angle for it to end up in the corner. Of course, Im just kidding around and not actually calculating it.

"For sure, though, Ive always paid attention to numbers, even if I havent really applied it to my game yet. Id like to use my degree to become a football analyst, as I find analysing different tactics and things like percentage stats and shots on goal all very interesting."

And who knows, perhaps Kozlova will continue to be involved in Ukrainian women's football after she hangs up her boots and use her expertise to help further its development.

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Kozlova and the magic of numbers - FIFA.com

Mr. Price added that the foreign ministers would also address the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, as well as issues including human rights, food security and gender equality.

Joining the ministers from the Group of 7 countries the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada in London will be representatives from Australia, India, South Africa, South Korea and Brunei.

Their attendance reflects a growing interest on the part of western nations to collaborate more closely with fellow democracies around the world as part of the broader competition with China and other countries exporting authoritarian values, including Russia.

Officials from those nations will join ones from the Group of 7 for a discussion on Wednesday about open societies, including media freedom and combating disinformation, Ms. Barks-Ruggles added. Samantha Power, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, will join sessions on how to ensure a sustainable recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

During his stay in London from Monday to Wednesday, Mr. Blinken will meet with Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain and his foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, and take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at St. Pauls Cathedral honoring soldiers killed in World War II.

Even as Biden administration officials have stressed their support for Ukraines government, they have also pressured Kyiv to complete reforms within the countrys notoriously corrupt political system. The State Department said that would be a priority for Mr. Blinken, and that progress in that area is key to securing Ukraines democratic institutions, economic prosperity and Euro-Atlantic future.

Briefing reporters on Thursday, Mr. Price said that the United States was deeply concerned by a recent move by Ukrainian cabinet ministers to replace the management of the countrys leading energy company, Naftogaz. Mr. Price called the actions just the latest example of ignoring best practices and putting Ukraines hard-fought economic progress at risk.

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Blinken Will Visit Ukraine in Show of Support Against Russia - The New York Times

A general view of the deserted town of Pripyat, some 3 kilometers (1.86 miles) from the Chernobyl ... [+] nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

May 1 was one of the biggest holidays in the Soviet calendarthe worker's festival. In 1986, celebrations across the Soviet Union were overshadowed by what had happened just days before: the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The Soviet leadership's unsure response was to cost lives and, arguably, hasten the end of the USSR itself.

On the night of 25-26 April, there was an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power station, in what was then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, one of the 15 constituent republics of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). The explosion released large amounts of deadly radioactive material that then dispersed far beyond the disaster zone itself.

The Kremlin Tried To Cover Up Chernobyl Disaster

The Soviet authorities initially attempted to cover up the catastrophe. It was not until April 27 that the 30,000 inhabitants of the nearby town of Pripyat were moved from their homes. But the scale of the danger was such that it could not be kept quiet. Within days, unusually and worryingly high levels of radiation had been detected in Scandinavia. The secret could be kept no more.

The Kremlin tried still to remain silentbut their efforts were in vain. On April 29, the London Times front pageciting reports from Stockholm, Swedenwarned of a "Huge nuclear leak At Soviet plant."

Western correspondents in Moscow soon realized what was unfolding beyond the confines of the Soviet capital. The Soviet authorities had to respondhowever reluctantly. "They were deliberately trying to obscure what was going on," Philip Taubman, then in Moscow as a correspondent for the New York Times, told me in an interview for my book, Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia from Lenin to Putin.

In fact the Soviet leadership was now caught in a trap at least partly of its own making. Under the reform programmeknown as "perestroika", or "reconstruction"that had been launched by Mikhail Gorbachev when he had become Soviet leader the previous year, journalists were encouraged to be frank about the shortcomings of the planned communist economy.

"Angry At The Lack Of Candor"

This extended to questioning official statements in a way that was unprecedented in a society where the Communist party controlled the media. Taubman remembered a news conference on Chernobyl as one of the first times he saw Soviet reporters "angry at the lack of candor" in official statements.

FILE - In this photo taken May 1, 1986 in Ukraine's capital Kiev, people rally to celebrate the May ... [+] Day a few days after the deadly explosion on the 4th unit in Chernobyl nuclear power plant. (AP Photo)

May Day Parades Go Ahead

With hindsight, one of the most troubling aspects of the initial cover up was the Moscow authorities insistence that the May Day parades in Kyiv go ahead as normalto try to convince people that nothing was wrong. Those celebrating the holiday in the streets put themselves at risk from radiation.

But this kind of callousness had a price. It undermined confidence in the authorities' ability to lead. One of the most striking subsequent accounts of the disaster can be found in the numerous interviews conducted by the Nobel prize-winning author Svetlana Alexievich for her book, Chernobyl Prayer (also translated as Voices from Chernobyl).

Alexievich's work was one of the sources used by creators of the HBO series about the disaster, Chernobyl. "It really impressed me," the author said of the TV dramatization in a 2019 interview with RFE/RL.

ProtestAnd The End Of The Soviet System

"Chernobyl unleashed a mass protest movement against the authorities," wrote the Harvard historian, Serhii Plokhy, in his 2014 book, The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1991. The explosion in the reactor was a crack in the USSR that not only cost countless livesthe nature and delayed effects of radiation mean that the true death toll may never be knownbut also contributed to the demise of a political system.

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How The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Shaped Russia And Ukraines Modern History - Forbes

One of the subtlest tools in the diplomatic kit is the concept of strategic ambiguity. In the right circumstances, it can achieve more foreign-policy goals than strategic clarity, even preventing war. In the wrong situation, ambiguity can backfire and cause disaster. The question is which context currently applies to the standoffs in Ukraine and the Taiwan Strait.

In their own ways, China under President Xi Jinping and Russia under President Vladimir Putin have deftly been keeping their adversaries in check with deliberate ambiguity. By contrast, the West, from the U.S. to the European Union, has of late seemed ambiguous more by default than design. This must change.

Consider Putin. Having just rattled his sabers again near Ukraine, hes now withdrawing his forces from that countrys borders. His purpose this time, it appears, was only to remind Kiev and the West that he alone controls the pace of conflictescalation (and de-escalation) in the region, from Belarus to Georgia.

In his recent state address, Putinwarned the West not to cross any red lines,or it would suffer his asymmetric ferocity. Most tellingly, he added that we ourselves will determine where those red lines are. Thats strategic ambiguity: We might strike you, but we wont tell you when or why, because we want you Kiev and the West to keep guessing.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, by contrast, obviously yearns for strategic clarity, such as firm assurances from the West that it would defend Ukraine. Better yet, as he said this month, hed like to take the next step toward membership in NATO, which would be the ultimate deterrence against Russia.

But any move toward NATO membership would be exactly the kind of red line Putin was talking about. In that case, it would provoke, rather than deter, the very catastrophe that the U.S. and Europe are hoping to avoid: a full-scale invasion. That would force the West to decide whether or not to fight and lose lives for Ukraine, and above all whether it could even win that battle. So NATO, the U.S. and the European Union are remaining strategically ambiguous about how theyd respond to Russian belligerence.

Now consider the Taiwan Strait, arguably the archetype of successful strategic ambiguity. On paper the U.S. has always recognized only one China. But in 1979 it switched its diplomatic protocol from Taipei to Beijing, while also passing the Taiwan Relations Act. Masterfully, it says that any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means would be of grave concern to the United States.

This deliberate ambiguity about whether the U.S. would repel a mainland attack arguably kept the peace forfour decades. It forced the Chinese to fear a war with the American superpower. And it reminded Taipei that it didnt have a blank check to declare independence because the U.S. might not come to its aid.

The two examples show when strategic ambiguity works best. Its when the same message must simultaneously send different signals to two or more parties. In these examples, the West is telling, respectively, Moscow and Beijing not to attack, while reminding Kiev and Taipei not to provoke. The resulting limbo is meant to avert war.

But this only works as long as all sides feel that time is in their favor. China, for example, long felt it had to get militarily stronger before challenging the U.S. It also hoped to persuade the Taiwanese to reunify voluntarily, with growing economic cooperation and promises of political autonomy.

Both assumptions have changed. Beijing increasingly feels it could win a limited war against the U.S. And it fears that the islands population increasingly sees itself as distinct in recent polls, a record 83% identify as Taiwanese as opposed to Chinese. Xi is also aware that his betrayal of Hong Kongs autonomy has convinced the Taiwanese that peaceful reunification would never be in their favor.

Thats why a growing chorus in Washington is calling for replacing American strategic ambiguity in the Taiwan Strait with clarity. Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations,argues that the U.S. must make its willingness to defend Taiwan unambiguous to keep deterring China and prevent war. Maintaining ambiguity might instead scare Americas other allies in the region, notably Japan and South Korea, into looking after their own security by building their own nuclear weapons.

In eastern Europe, such a line of reasoning is less straightforward. NATO allies such as Poland or the Baltic republics are also paying attention to the Wests stance in Ukraine and similarly feel vulnerable toward Russia. But they wont start building their own nukes or seek alternative alliances. Moreover, if defending Taiwan is difficult, repelling a Russian attack on Ukraine is even harder. The West appears unsure how much its defense would be worth in lives.

Whats clear is that the choice between ambiguity and clarity is fraught with danger and a matter for the highest rung of statecraft. Its disconcerting when a U.S. president appears not to appreciate the concept of strategic ambiguity in 2001, George W. Bush stated bluntly that he would do whatever it takes to defend Taiwan. Its equally worrisome when a president fails to grasp the proper deployment of strategic clarity. In 2012 Barack Obama warned Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad not to cross the red line of using chemical weapons but then did nothing when Assad committed that atrocity the following year.

In East Asia, the case for switching from ambiguity to clarity is now strong. In eastern Europe, it remains weaker. But what worries me most is that the Wests ambiguity in both regions increasingly seems desultory rather than strategic the result of indecision as opposed topurpose.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:Andreas Kluth at akluth1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:Nicole Torres at ntorres51@bloomberg.net

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The US and Europe Are Dithering on Conflicts in Ukraine and Taiwan - Bloomberg