NATO leaders went further than ever on Tuesday in their promise that Ukraine will one day become the organization’s 33rd partner, as read on the auditorium marquee under which President Volodimir Zelensky is sitting. He gave a mass bath in the center of Vilnius this Tuesday and the posters with which the Government of Lithuania has decorated the capital say, that it fears that it will follow the same fate as this country if the Alliance does not react. The text, however, is far from the “direct and clear” invitation that Kyiv craved and reflects fears that more explicit language would drag allied countries into open conflict with Russia.
“Ukraine’s future is in NATO” and the Alliance will extend “an invitation” to it to enter when its leaders “agree and the conditions are met”, affirms the declaration of the summit agreed by the leaders, a commitment that includes different decisions to support this process from a military and political point of view, in particular the simplification of the accession process. These promises will be completed by the security guarantees that, bilaterally, the G-7 countries – and, in particular, the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany – are negotiating with Ukraine and which will be finalized in the coming days.
Kyiv aspired to go further. The absence of a date for possible access or details about the conditions that Ukraine must meet for NATO to extend the long-awaited invitation were interpreted, however, as a sign of “weakness” of the allies against Moscow by the president. Volodimir Zelensky. The language of the text can be interpreted by Russia as “an invitation” to perpetuate its campaign of “terror” against Ukraine, Zelensky warned before traveling to Vilnius.
“It is unprecedented and absurd that a timetable is not set for Ukraine’s invitation or accession while, at the same time, vague mention of ‘conditions’ for inviting Ukraine is added,” criticized the Ukrainian leader after know the draft of the allied declaration. But the Ukrainian desire for the Alliance to specify what circumstances should exist or what measures it should comply with for the allies to take that step clashes squarely with the caution demanded by the United States and Germany, among other allies, to avoid “automatisms” or “compromising ” the result of hypothetical peace talks with Russia.
The fear of Ukraine, which has been on the minds of all the allies during the Vilnius negotiations, is a repetition of the scenario that occurred in the 2008 Bucharest summit, when the allies, under pressure from Washington, agreed that Ukraine, at like Georgia, they would one day be NATO partners. Although the Alliance took no real steps to make that prospect a reality, Russia took it as a warning and, six years later, annexed Crimea.
Paradoxically, since then, Ukraine has taken giant steps towards the Atlantic Alliance, which since that year began to provide it with non-lethal military aid and training to defend itself against Russian aggression, a cooperation that has increased exponentially since February 24, 2022 Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of the country. The war also so altered the security landscape on the continent that two traditionally neutral countries, Finland and Sweden, asked to join NATO. The former became the 31st partner in April, while the latter, blocked by Turkey, hopes to enter shortly and thus complete a historic expansion of the Alliance, which will border with Russia along the entire Baltic.
Despite Zelensky’s protests, the package of measures that NATO is offering Ukraine to shield its military and political support is unprecedented. First, the Alliance has agreed to set up a NATO-Ukraine Council in which both parties will sit “on an equal footing” to consult and take measures in the field of security. The first meeting of this forum will take place today in Vilnius, with the participation of Zelenski and the rest of the allied leaders.
The Alliance has also approved launching a multi-year defense plan to speed up Ukraine’s military transition away from Soviet-era equipment and improve its interoperability with allied armed forces. This decision could be backed with around 7 billion euros in aid over the next five years, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said during a recent allied meeting in Oslo.
The third decision taken by the leaders to underpin their promises to Kyiv is to simplify the entry process and remove the condition of completing an action plan for accession, a move Germany refused until a few days ago, but which reflects the high level of cooperation already existing between the allied and Ukrainian armed forces as a result of the donations of war materiel and the training of troops.
“This will make Ukraine’s accession process happen in one step, not two,” Stoltenberg explained at the final press conference on the first day of the summit, listing the differences between the 2008 Bucharest declaration and the adopted this Tuesday in Vilnius, especially the fact that the Alliance adopts the necessary “instruments” to make Kyiv’s entry a reality. “There has never been stronger language on NATO membership” nor has he been “so specific” about what he is going to do to ensure that “Ukraine joins his ranks”.
The statement deliberately does not detail what circumstances would have to exist for NATO to decide to invite Ukraine, but there is an obvious one: the need for its entry not to drag the Alliance countries into a war with Moscow. “Ukraine is at war, it is a fact. The Ukrainian forces have shown a bravery and talent that has impressed the world, but at the same time, it is a full-scale war and the allies agree that as long as there is a war, it is not the time to bring Ukraine into as a partner,” Stoltenberg clarified. For Kyiv, this approach will encourage Moscow to perpetuate the war or turn it into a frozen conflict.
Another novelty resulting from the war in Ukraine is the political and military cooperation between NATO and the European Union, which are now preparing to join forces to bring the country closer to both organizations. “Although they are different processes, they converge because they are the same actors and they are talking about the same issues,” explain European diplomatic sources, referring to arms shipments to help Kyiv defend itself, financial aid and the type of reforms that will have to take place. to do to enter both NATO and the EU, more demanding in the case of the community club, but coinciding on issues such as the modernization of institutions or the fight against corruption. “They are processes that reinforce each other”, “parallel tracks, but to a certain extent synchronized”, they add.
