Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk believes that if Ukraine wants to speed up the process of its accession to NATO, it will have to bring its Armed Forces in line with the alliance's criteria and standards.

"Today the majority of Ukrainians support accession to NATO… We also realize that the issue of Ukraine's membership in NATO requires a coordinated decision to be made by the alliance's member countries. It means that it will take time. But we can accelerate this process. We ought to intensify cooperation with the alliance and effectively bring the Ukrainian Armed Forces totally in line with its criteria and standards. This is the shortest and fastest path to NATO," Yatseniuk said in an interview, which was published in the Ukrainian government's Uriadovy Kurier newspaper on Tuesday.

"In other words, from the moment of its judicial accession to NATO, Ukraine should effectively join NATO. It means that the Ukrainian Armed Forces ought to fully match the logistics and standards of the alliance's member countries, and Ukrainian servicemen should have the appropriate skills and the appropriate routine," the prime minister said.

Yatseniuk said that he "has been demanding defensive weapons from our Western partners for more than a year."

He also recalled that U.S. President Barack Obama recently signed a directive to supply the Ukrainian Armed Forces with counter-battery radars. Furthermore, as part of its material and technical assistance the U.S. has provided Ukraine's Armed Forces with 130 Hummer all-terrain vehicles, including 30 armored ones, the prime minister said. All of these vehicles have already been distributed among Ukrainian army units. Americans and Canadians also help train Ukrainian soldiers.

Yatseniuk, however, admitted the "extremely poor development" of the Armed Forces' logistics in Ukraine.

"For these purposes NATO has opened five trust funds, and Americans, Canadians, Britons and the EU contribute to the functioning of our military reform commission," he added.