Ukraine has very real prospects for joining NATO/Channel 24
If Ukraine were a member of NATO in the same way as the Baltic countries and the former Warsaw Pact countries, then in the event of Russian aggression, all members of the Alliance would collectively be obliged to defend it, as provided for in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty of 1949. Further – in an exclusive blog for the channel 24 website.
Walker will overcome the road
That is, the security situation would be radically different than now, when only NATO and its members are separate decide how and to what extent they support Ukraine.
Since the occupation of part of Ukrainian territory by Russia, our state has abandoned the policy of “non-alignment”.
In June 2017, the Ukrainian parliament defined NATO membership as the country's foreign policy goal. In February 2019, the course towards membership in NATO and the EU was enshrined in our Constitution. In 2018, NATO granted Ukraine the status of a postgraduate country applying for membership.
“We reaffirm the decision taken at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance with a Membership Action Plan as an integral part of the process … We strongly support Ukraine's right to decide its future and foreign policy without outside interference,” reads the communiqué drawn up on the results of the NATO Brussels Summit in 2021.
The active phase of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, which has continued since 2014, has not contributed to strengthening security in the Euro-Atlantic area. For all these years, there has been a consensus in NATO not to accept new members who are in a situation of unresolved territorial conflict.
The Russian tactics of creating around itself a belt of “disabled states” with occupied territories has successfully worked in favor of opponents of integration Ukraine in NATO.
The Alliance has never posed any threat to Russia. And until February 2022, the US President and other NATO leaders made it clear that they would not be directly involved in the defense of Ukraine.
Ironically, the latest act of unprovoked aggression by the Kremlin on February 24 proved that the long-standing Russian appeal that NATO is expanding too close to its borders is just a convenient excuse for Russian expansion in the region.
In my opinion, Russia will do everything possible to further destroy the international order established after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War.
If Ukraine were admitted to NATO before this year, the situation would change radically. Russia would have realized that it would not be able to return Ukraine to its zone of influence by military means. That is why in recent decades the main strategic task of Russia has been the destruction and weakening of the North Atlantic Alliance as an effectively functioning institution. At the tactical level, the Kremlin was focused on the task of making it impossible for Ukraine to become a member of NATO and expand the Alliance to the East.
If Ukraine wants to preserve its sovereignty and independence, then there is no alternative to membership in the EU and NATO. Russia, of course, will never agree to Ukraine's membership in these two associations that oppose its worldviews. Integrated into the European economy and collective security system, Ukraine will forever “escape” from the gray zone controlled by Russia.
Understanding this connection, Moscow has recently fully identified the risks of Ukraine's membership in both NATO and the EU. She has repeatedly stated this through the mouths of her court “communicators” and diplomats, since the autumn of last year.
Will Ukraine's aspiration to become a full-fledged member of NATO forever remain a dream?
How about its post-war security, Ukraine reflects
After the start of a full-scale war of Russia against Ukraine, support for our state's membership in NATO reached almost 80% . However, it then declined. In the information field, the discussion of the “incapacity” of NATO, the possible refusal of Ukraine to join the Alliance in exchange for security guarantees has intensified.
According to the May KIIS poll, Ukrainians almost equally support NATO membership (39%) and “security guarantees” instead of joining the Alliance (42%).
In March, a discussion began in Ukraine about whether we should strive to membership in the Alliance. Arguments are sounding more and more confident that in the event that this is such a strong “trigger” for Russia, it is advisable to give in to this. Some criticize that Ukraine has not received the protection and assistance it hoped for from NATO.
True, after the exposure of a number of war crimes committed by Russia in our temporarily occupied territory, these discussions subsided simultaneously with the Istanbul negotiation platform.
Ukraine, at the suggestion of a number of external and internal players, began to publicly seek a formula for its security outside of NATO membership .
Our leaders want to receive security guarantees from world states that will not be inferior in strength to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, while not having any formal obligations of Ukraine in response. Unfortunately, there is no such formula. Rather, it exists on paper. Something similar was already “guaranteed” to us in 1994 in Budapest under the renunciation of nuclear weapons. The fallacy of the Budapest Memorandum has been proved by the lives of Ukrainians and the occupied territories.
Among the potential guarantors of Ukrainian security were the UK, China, Poland, the USA, France, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Israel and even Russia.
p>
However, consultations with potential guarantors of Ukraine's security have shown that there is no alternative to Ukraine's path to NATO. It quickly became clear from the content of diplomatic messages coming from Washington, London and Berlin that the “security guarantees” that our Western partners are willing to consider are not analogous to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.
According to international law, these are not specific obligations to guarantee the security of Ukraine, but “assurances” of security (“assurances”). Even the United States and Great Britain have explained that they are unlikely to be able to provide Ukraine with the same support in repelling potential aggression as it would if it were a member of the Alliance.
In this case, by signing another Budapest-2, Ukraine, in the event of aggression, will receive no more effective assistance from the “guarantors of security” than it is now, waiting for months to coordinate the supply of weapons necessary for defense. In this scenario, no one will create a “sea corridor” to the ports of Ukraine, “close” our sky or deploy a contingent of their troops in Ukraine.
There is an alternative to this “helpless” state – the armed neutrality of the Israeli or Swiss model. If you do not go into geopolitical, military and economic details, military neutrality for Ukraine is an “unbearable luxury.” To minimize the risks of aggression from the Russian Federation to a critically low level, it will be necessary to systematically invest huge amounts of money in defense, the latest technologies, and the military-industrial complex. With such a level of defense spending, Ukraine simply does not have the resources to develop and perform other state functions.
Finally, we should admit the obvious: without the powerful military assistance of our partners, almost all of which are NATO countries, Ukraine will not be able to effectively deter Russian aggression.
There are statements in the media and from international analysts that Ukraine seems to be “guaranteed not to be admitted” to NATO in the coming decades. Like, in a non-public format, our president was told about this until February 24 and now the leaders of other states are talking.
These conspiracy theories are very reminiscent of the Kremlin's interpretation of Gorbachev-Baker's behind-the-scenes conversations about promises “not to expand NATO to the East” or Yeltsin's attempts to conclude a “safe agreement” with Clinton on the exclusion of ex-Soviet states from the Alliance expansion zone.
Considering the strong position of the Alliance states when considering the “safe requirements” of the Russian Federation announced by the United States and its allies in December last year, without the consent of Ukraine, NATO will never “unilaterally deny” our state the right to membership. This would be the end of the value system of the North Atlantic Alliance and the collective West as such.
So, our intra-national discussion about the post-war European security system, not without the participation of Ukraine's opponents, is now being used to abandon NATO “by the hands of Ukraine itself” .
The heightened information activity around the issue of Ukrainian membership in NATO testifies to the reality of achieving this goal in the short term after the end of the war.
For obvious reasons, the Alliance is currently unable to offer us membership. But there is a factor that brings this prospect closer: now the door to the status of an EU candidate is opening for Ukraine. Ukraine's path to the EU, among other things, will make more significant the economic motivation of European countries to guarantee the safety of their own investments in our country.
Consequently, the integration of Ukraine into the EU opens a “window of opportunity” in NATO. In terms of the functioning of European security, the EU and NATO are closely linked. Therefore, all Eastern European states were moving towards membership in these two international associations at the same time.
At the same time, if in Eastern Europe the order was basically “from NATO membership to EU membership”, then the example of Sweden and Finland, who became members of the EU in 1995, shows the opposite approach.
It is more important than ever before for Ukrainians to understand that our movement into the Alliance is a path of reforms that will qualitatively change the state along with its security sector and law enforcement system. The passage of a parallel reform roadmap in both the EU and NATO significantly increases our chances of eventual membership in both organizations.
As for Ukraine's membership, there will be a change in the approaches of NATO countries
The United States as the leader of the civilized democratic world and its allies with NATO after February 24 faced a difficult dilemma: to help Ukraine survive in the war with Russia with the risk of a possible escalation on the territory of the Alliance countries themselves, or to allow Putin to “take his own” in Ukraine and leave all the neutral countries of Eastern Europe under the influence of Russia. Considering the lessons of the history of the Second World War and the values professed by the Allies, the choice in favor of the first option was obvious.
However, there is a more global question that the collective West must answer: what will happen to Ukraine once the war is over?
Shortly before Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine, German diplomat Christoph Geusgen said in an interview that denying Ukraine the prospect of NATO membership was “neither politically nor morally” unacceptable. In his opinion, we need to think about the time after Putin: “Perhaps Putin's successor will say that, given the competition with China, he is interested in a greater orientation towards Europe, international democracy and the rule of law.” In such a situation, as Geusgen noted, Ukraine could become a member of NATO.
This opinion reflects the entire pre-war approach of the Alliance in relation to Ukraine's place in European security – to wait out the “era Putin”.
At the time of the attack on Ukraine, Russia made a bet on the inertia of the response and heterogeneity in the ranks of its Western opponents. Against the backdrop of an instant “blitzkrieg” on the territory of Ukraine, this should help the Kremlin avoid the effect of sanctions and paralyze the response of the West: if Ukraine is already “finished”, then what is the point of Europe incurring economic losses from Russia's isolation. It didn't work out.
However, the lack of a consensus on Finland's and Sweden's accession to NATO may convince Putin that the split of the Western allies is still real, and at the same time become an incentive for the escalation of hostilities in Ukraine. After all, the political and economic consequences of the war in Ukraine can, according to the Kremlin, only exacerbate such a split.
After February 24, European NATO Allies began a wide-ranging reassessment of their security policies.
Germany and France now felt that partnership, trade, and multi-year energy contracts could no longer replace military deterrence when faced with such states, like authoritarian Russia.
Finland and Sweden, having abandoned their neutral status, are on the verge of joining NATO. Other European countries are significantly increasing defense spending, transferring new weapons to Ukraine and strengthening their military presence on the Alliance's eastern flank.
At the Alliance level, the results of such reflection will be reflected in the NATO 2030 Strategic Concept, which will be adopted at the Alliance's Madrid Summit in June. The current NATO Strategic Concept in 2010, among other things, considers Russia as a “strategic partner”.
These changes in European security and the reality of the threat to Russia will also affect approaches to the place of Ukraine.
In contrast to the concept of “outlive Putin” in terms of Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic aspirations, I will quote the statements of the American diplomat Kurt Volker, who is not only familiar with Ukrainian realities in words: “I think that after the war with Russia, Ukraine should become a member of NATO. Everything changes, for example, before a full-scale war the issue of joining the European Union did not look promising, but after the start of aggression, many things will change.”
“I believe that the guarantee of Ukraine’s security,” Volker continues, “is cooperation with NATO. In my opinion, it is reasonable for President Zelensky to take NATO membership off the agenda so that everyone can see that the president of the aggressor country, Russia, Vladimir Putin, is not fighting Ukraine. through NATO, but simply wants to destroy the Ukrainian state.
In fact, by becoming a member of the EU, Ukraine will receive security guarantees from other member states. The EU agreement includes provisions for joint defense, similar to those insisted on by Kyiv during negotiations with Moscow. But it would be frivolous enough to rely on the EU's nascent common defense policy to protect against Russian aggression.
First, the procedure for Ukraine's accession to the EU will take more than one year. And secondly, EU security guarantees do not include commitments from the United States and Great Britain, the key “nuclear” players in NATO.
And here we come to the conditional “Bucharest precedent”. In April 2008, Ukraine was already on the verge of submitting a NATO Membership Action Plan. Insurmountable differences in the views of the allies blocked this decision, which was replaced by vague promises that Ukraine “in the future will become a member of NATO.” From that moment on, Germany and France refused to invite Ukraine to the Alliance, fearing to provoke Russia.
Now that Russia has proven that it does not need “NATO provocations” to commit an act of aggression, the Alliance must change its wait-and-see attitude and give Ukraine a fast track to membership. The argument here is very simple – any fight against an aggressor is in fact always more expensive than its effective deterrence.
Of course, today there are political and security obstacles for Ukraine's rapid membership in the Alliance. Therefore, a common initiative to promote Ukraine's membership in NATO, which could be led by such key allies as the US, UK, Canada and Poland, could overcome the “historic” skepticism of France and Germany.
Britain, after Brexit actively seeking its new status in the world, in recent months has shown an interest in lobbying Ukraine's interests in NATO in comparison with other key member countries. In this vein, regional initiatives to deepen cooperation between Ukraine, the UK and Poland are a positive signal in the issue of Ukraine's integration into NATO as a key country in the security belt of the Baltic-Black Sea region.
Russia, even after its military defeat in Ukraine, will be against Ukraine's membership in NATO. It will threaten mostly with political and military consequences, as is already happening with the decision of Finland and Sweden to become members of the Alliance. But, given a number of objective reasons, the Kremlin's game is not ready to expand the conflict in an open confrontation with NATO. In fact, Russia has already used the entire set of conventional military means to prevent Ukraine from pursuing an independent foreign security policy.
The first steps towards changing the established paradigm of candidate countries joining NATO through the “front door” are already under way. Ukraine has a chance to become a NATO member without the Membership Action Plan stage – as is happening right now with Finland and Sweden.
According to US diplomats, the Membership Action Plan was never a legal requirement for joining NATO, which means that Ukraine can also join the Alliance without it. The Membership Action Plan, according to Chargé d'Affaires in Ukraine Christina Quinn, is seen as a mechanism for a Member State to achieve the requirements for interoperability, and if any state already meets these requirements, the Membership Action Plan becomes redundant.
Ukraine in this vein deserves the same approach as Finland and Sweden. True, with a few reservations.
Unlike the Scandinavian candidate countries, Ukraine today has occupied territories. Also, if the war with Russia in its hybrid phase lasts for several subsequent years, as, for example, it was in the Donbass for 8 years, NATO will not be able to accept a country at war with its members.
In particular, On April 26, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that NATO's doors for Ukraine would continue to be open. However, the head of the Pentagon clarified, the prospects for entry can only be discussed after the end of the war with Russia.
It is not the first year that the NATO corridors have been debating that, by continuing its aggressive policy of occupying the territory of its neighbors, Russia is de facto gaining the right to veto NATO membership of these states. For this reason, NATO is “ripening” to implement an approach that limits Article 6 of the Washington Collective Security Treaty to territories under stable government control at the date of accession.
Undoubtedly, in order to adapt the Alliance's expansion policy to the realities of Ukraine's security, persistent pressure from NATO's leading countries and a creative diplomatic game will be needed. The United States, as the ideologue and guarantor of North Atlantic security, must play a key role in this process. The Western coalition within the Rammstein format has already done a good job of building a unified coalition of Western countries to establish stable military assistance to Ukraine. After the war, Washington, London, Ottawa and Warsaw will have to do the same to unite the NATO countries around the idea of Ukraine's membership.
Instead of conclusions
The difficult international situation that arose after February 24 this year led to a number of irreversible consequences and the dismantling of the post-Cold War European security architecture.
Strange as it may seem, this situation opens up a number of opportunities for Ukraine. As never before, Ukraine has a chance to start the procedure of accession not only to the EU, but also to NATO.
To seize the moment, we must correctly interpret the current situation, the nature of the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the arguments that may make it impossible in the future. To do this, the authorities and society should conduct an honest dialogue. Do not ask or give unfulfilled promises to “win the war in two months” or conclude a new alliance that “will be stronger than NATO guarantees.” mislead the citizens of Ukraine. They are pushing us to another reversal in foreign policy.
The best proof of the effectiveness of NATO's collective security guarantees is the “Scandinavian marathon” in the Alliance, which began immediately after the start of a new phase of Russian aggression this year. The Finns and Swedes, having seen the “window of opportunity”, did not create new defense alliances. Their defense and security policy, even with a formally neutral status, has been aimed at full compatibility with the Alliance over the past decades.
And, finally, there is only one main indicator: since its founding 73 years ago, not a single NATO member state has experienced territorial encroachments from third countries (we will put the issues of the “war in the Falklands” and the attack on the United States on September 11 out of the brackets).< /p>
It is today, during the devastating war on Ukrainian territories, that a tectonic and value shift is taking place in understanding Ukraine's role in Europe. This change in views on Ukraine and Russia, so convenient and profitable for Western elites, will not happen simultaneously.
Today's “Ukrainian crisis”, as it is often called in the world media, is a “strength test” for the Western system of values and institutions, the key place among which is occupied by the North Atlantic Alliance.
The true causes of Russian aggression and the risks of Russian -Ukrainian war for the entire continent change the previous negative attitude towards Ukraine's membership in NATO.
But there are two essential conditions. Of course, in order to continue moving both in NATO and in the EU, it is necessary at least to complete the active stage of the war. The second factor of our success is not to speculate on the feeling “the whole world is to blame for Ukraine”, but to demand an acceleration of integration for real reforms.
The previous approach of NATO's “open door policy” turned out to be passive and long-term. As a result, a fertile space was created for manipulation and abuse by opponents of Euro-Atlantic integration.
The decision to support Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic aspirations for European politicians is a kind of test of readiness to give priority to security over economic gain. In many NATO countries, it has come to be realized that the preliminary emphasis on dialogue and the involvement of the Russian Federation in order to reduce tension in Europe did not materialize, leading to security, humanitarian, and, in the future, economic catastrophe on a global scale.
Europe today is extremely what is needed is the ability of the Alliance to play an active role, building a strong security environment, rather than reacting to crises, as happened with the aggression of the Russian Federation against Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.
The key test of this new role in on the continent will be the Alliance's readiness to integrate both the Scandinavian allies in the north, the Western Balkan countries in the south, and its allies in the east of Europe. faster than many think today. It will not happen now or tomorrow in the midst of the war, but perhaps immediately after it is over.
