Russia was wrong when it opted for a quick military victory over Ukraine, and it is also wrong if its calculation now is that international support for its government will fade, the leaders of the Atlantic Alliance, the G-7 and the European Union warned yesterday, met in Vilnius with the purpose of shielding their military, financial and political support for the country.
The G-7 leaders “will be on Ukraine’s side as long as it defends itself against Russian aggression and for as long as necessary,” say the leaders of the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada in a joint declaration that will be the starting point for the signing of “bilateral agreements” of “security commitments” with Kyiv, which will include decisions such as the “sustained shipment” of “modern military material”, prioritizing “defense air, artillery and long-range weapons”, as well as the organization of joint military maneuvers to prepare his army to fight against Russia and “repel any future attack”.
In the words of French President Emmanuel Macron: “Russia is militarily and politically fragile, more than many believed, while our support for Ukraine is much more durable than many thought,” he said at the final press conference of the Allied summit held in the Lithuanian capital, a few tens of kilometers from the border with Belarus, an accomplice in the war.
Spain, like other NATO countries, has agreed to join the plan to extend support commitments to Ukraine “for whatever it takes and for as long as it takes,” announced the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez. In addition to Spain and Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Portugal and the Czech Republic will adhere to security commitments to Ukraine, according to government sources. The European Union will also contribute to these agreements by giving a more structural nature to its military, financial and political assistance to the country.
The objective of these security agreements is twofold. With regard to Moscow, make it clear that they are not going to abandon Ukraine in this war of attrition, for as long as it lasts, not even if it rearms and tries to attack again when it is over. And, with regard to Kyiv, the guarantee that Western military and economic aid is of a structural nature and that it can count on it regardless of possible political ups and downs, an important guarantee in view of the slow progress of the Ukrainian counter-offensive and of the 2024 electoral calendar, when the United States will go to the polls and the composition of the EU institutions will be renewed.
In exchange for these guarantees, the Ukrainian authorities will undertake to promote “effective reforms” with a view to “Euro-Atlantic integration.” The addition of the G-7 announcement to the declaration approved the day before by the Alliance and the announcement of the dispatch of more anti-aircraft defenses and armored vehicles allowed the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, to proclaim that “the Ukrainian delegation returns home with an important victory for your security”. The G-7 announcement is “the first legal document” specifying “the security guarantees” Ukraine has in the long term. With this new architecture, assistance to his country “will not be based only on personal relationships, but also on a legal framework” that will define the “security umbrella” Kyiv has until the war ends and it joins NATO.
For Zelensky, these agreements will serve as a bridge until Ukraine becomes a full member of the Atlantic Alliance, but they are not a substitute for joining the military organization. “Security guarantees are very important for the Ukrainian people, but these are guarantees in view of Ukraine’s accession to NATO, not instead of,” said its president at a joint press conference with the allied secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg. “I am confident that after the war we will join NATO, we will do everything possible to make it so,” he stressed minutes before participating in the first meeting of the new NATO-Ukraine Council. “Today we meet as equals, I am looking forward to meeting as allies,” Stoltenberg told him, to emphasize that the country’s membership prospects are real.
Although, for Ukraine, “the optimal” would have been an invitation to enter immediately, “Ukrainians are reasonable people and we understand that you are afraid to talk about it now, because nobody wants to have a world war,” Zelensky admitted, echoing of the fears publicly expressed by various Allied leaders in recent days that a decision in this sense would drag the Alliance into the “third world war”. “Ukraine understands that it cannot be a member of NATO as long as there is a war on our territory, but the signals matter”, and the set of signals coming out of Vilnius bring the country closer to the Alliance, declared the Ukrainian leader in a conciliatory tone, who on Tuesday he tried to influence the negotiation of the NATO text with a harsh tweet in which he accused the allies of showing “weakness” towards Russia.
Allied leaders were elated by the agreements reached at the summit and which, beyond Ukraine, include the approval of their new regional defense plans to adjust them to the new security situation. The meeting, however, ended on a bitter note when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at a press conference, clarified that his commitment to ratify Sweden’s accession protocol to NATO “as soon as possible” means that it will not happen before October due to Parliament’s summer recess, which he does not plan to interrupt.
