Last week AUK students of Global Management Master’s Program had a meeting with a guest speaker Carmen Romero, Deputy Assistant Secretary General of NATO for Public Diplomacy. This was a part of the course on the Global Security System “Challenges and Actors” leaded by the Program Director, Mark Voyger. The main topics of the discussion included the new NATO Strategic Concept and its significance for strengthening NATO’s collective defence; the current status and long-term perspectives of NATO-Ukraine relations, and NATO’s ongoing support for Ukraine in the current war - political, diplomatic and military.
While addressing the students Mrs. Romero outlined that: “This will be another challenging year, which will require flexibility and resilience from all of us. But it is important that you, AUK students, continue your studies and invest in your future.” She also stressed that “In NATO we have a lot of respect for the way Ukraine is fighting the Russian aggression. In NATO we are standing in full solidarity with Ukraine. We support very strongly your right for self-defence which is a right written in the United Nations Charter. I have been working for the NATO for last 16 years and I can tell you that our unity in this Alliance in terms of the support to Ukraine is unprecedented. I have not seen something like this before”.
Commenting on the current war situation, Mrs. Romero added: “In our view, president Putin really miscalculated when he made a decision to invade Ukraine. This doesn’t mean that he is less dangerous now. He obviously didn’t expect three things: strong Ukraine’s resistance, that crashed his plans for a quick war, the unity of the West and the strong response by NATO and the European Union. He wanted weaker and divided NATO but he has got a stronger NATO, more united as ever before”.
We are highly thankful Mrs. Romero for her powerful insights and profound talk with AUK students as well as Mark Voyger, Program Director of Global Management AUK.
Dnipro
