At the NATO summit in Washington, political leaders are preparing to serve a special “dish” to Ukraine

What? Again?

Yes, again: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is once again preparing something special for Ukraine instead of an invitation to join the Alliance at the organization’s Washington summit.

Although skepticism is growing in Kyiv regarding the prospects for membership in the military-political union and the trend towards signing bilateral agreements on security cooperation is intensifying, the course towards the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership remains constant. Just as in the near future, the tactical goal remains unchanged, namely to receive an invitation to the July summit in Washington. Only this goal is becoming more and more unattainable due to the position of two countries – the United States of America and Germany.

At the Kyiv Security Forum, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna stated with unexpected frankness what was often discussed on the sidelines: the United States of America does not provide the opportunity to talk about our country joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). “Now the entire dialogue with allies from headquarters comes down to the message: “Please behave calmly at the Washington summit, because we don’t know what Trump’s tweet will be after the leaders’ meeting,” Stefanishyna said.

The Ukrainian leadership views the invitation as a demonstration of support for Kyiv in the face of Russian aggression, as a political signal to Putin that the Kremlin does not have a veto on the admission of new members to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Ukraine’s future membership in the Alliance is not a subject of bargaining. Realizing that the path to the defense alliance is closed until the end of the war, Kyiv views the invitation as a legally binding format that guarantees both membership in the transatlantic organization and the absence of negotiations behind our country’s back.

The thing is that political leaders in the Ukrainian capital rightly believe that the formula of the Vilnius summit (although “the future of Ukraine is in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),” but the invitation will be sent “when the allies agree and the conditions are met”) has every chance of repeating the promises of the Bucharest summit. Let us recall that in 2008, the Alliance countries agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would become members of the organization and supported their applications to join the Membership Action Plan (MAP) of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). However, neither Kyiv nor Tbilisi received an invitation.

Despite the fact that at the headquarters of the organization and the capitals of its member countries there are discussions about the possible accession of our country to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) even in the presence of territory occupied by Russia, many in the Alliance consider the very fact of the invitation as a legal obligation to apply Article 5 of the Washington Treaty to protect Ukraine. Kyiv's argument that an invitation is not equivalent to membership does not work. Of course, the reference to Article 5 is a justification on the part of our partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 

Among the reasons why Washington and Berlin refuse to approve Kyiv's invitation to the summit is often cited as the reluctance of the leaders of the United States of America and Germany to provoke Putin, who is blackmailing the West with nuclear weapons. In addition, Joe Biden and Olaf Scholz insist that the decision on invitations should be made after Kyiv has completed certain reforms. But although Kyiv proposes that, as in the case of the European Union, certain criteria for obtaining membership, goals and terms of negotiations should be put forward, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) does not want to take such a step.

It is quite possible that Washington's motives are indeed based on fear. But not before escalation and direct confrontation with Russia, but before a public demonstration to the whole world that the United States of America no longer has the decisive influence over its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies that it had in recent decades. 

The story of Sweden's admission to the Alliance, when the United States of America failed for months to break the resistance of Turkey and Hungary, the disaster at the Bucharest Summit, when George W. Bush failed to convince Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy to support the provision of Ukraine with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Membership Action Plan (MAP), are not forgotten. And in Washington they fear that if the United States of America takes the initiative to invite Ukraine, and its allies do not support them again, this will become a mega-failure of the anniversary summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Germany has other motives. One gets the strong impression: despite the large-scale financial and military support of our country, despite the declaration that Russia should not win the war, in Berlin political figures want to maintain maximum opportunities for dialogue with Moscow, considering Kyiv’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a possible bargaining chip for negotiations on a peaceful settlement of Russia’s war with Ukraine. (It is possible that the same approach is shared in Washington.)

Despite these disappointing signals from our partners, political leaders in Kyiv continue to promote the idea of ​​formally inviting our country to the Alliance at the Washington Summit in the hope that the White House will change its position. Our persistence causes irritation.

And it is very important not to repeat the mistake made by the politicians on Bankova Street before the Vilnius summit, when the Ukrainian leadership aggressively promoted the proposal that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invite Ukraine to become a member of the Alliance in the Lithuanian capital. Then Kyiv, on the one hand, raised high expectations in Ukrainian society. On the other hand, this proposal caused irritation and indignation among our Western partners, who considered that the Ukrainian president had gone too far, achieving his goal through harsh diplomatic pressure.

In the meantime, according to ZN.UA, neither in Washington nor in Brussels the American authorities are communicating with the Ukrainian side on the topic of the July summit. However, our partners in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are offering compromise options.

So, according to Foreign Affairs, one of them is to send an invitation to Ukraine, but not take any action for the time being. Foreign Affairs also confirmed information previously available in ZN.UA that the “eastern wing”, that is, the Baltic countries, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania – are lobbying for an initiative to make a decision at the summit to “begin negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).”

These gestures are not obligatory to anything, but they are also blocked by the United States, America and Germany. Washington itself is proposing an option that, in its opinion, should both fill the July summit with content and satisfy Kyiv’s ambitions. We are talking about the initiative to create a Transformation mission of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) voiced by National Security Advisor to the President of the United States of America Jake Sullivan at a meeting of national security advisers of the Alliance member countries held on February 7.

Neither its goals nor its mandate are yet clear. But it is obvious that this mission will not be connected with Ukraine’s membership in the Alliance, but strictly with providing assistance to our country. On the one hand, such an initiative declares further support for our country. On the other hand, it is not a factor in accelerating the implementation of the course to obtain Kyiv’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

In promoting the idea of creating a Transformation mission, Washington is pursuing at least two interdependent goals. First, to fill the summit convened on the occasion of 75th anniversary ща the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with content, while at the same time providing something new for Ukraine. Secondly, in light of the threat of Donald Trump returning to the White House, switch the coordination of military assistance to Ukraine from the Ramstein format to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at the summit and “sell” this as a serious achievement of the meeting of allies in Washington.

However, the American initiative caused a negative attitude in a number of countries.

According to ZN.UA, Hungary, Germany, Slovakia, and Turkey oppose the supply of weapons to Ukraine through the Alliance, fearing that this will expose the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a belligerent and lead to direct confrontation with Russia. They advocate that military-technical assistance to our country continue to be provided at the bilateral level. Scandinavian and Baltic countries are also against arms supplies to Ukraine through the Alliance. They believe that through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (given the consensus format of decision-making) it will be difficult to coordinate military supplies to Ukraine.

Since it is not yet completely clear what the mission’s mandate will be, Kyiv’s position regarding the American initiative is just taking shape. But, apparently, a negative attitude towards this idea dominates: after all, nothing prevents the same Viktor Orbán from vetoing the supply of weapons and military equipment to our country. Skepticism about the mission is growing as confidence in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as an organization declines in Kyiv: too many promises and too little real action.

For example, projects under the Comprehensive Defense Assistance Package (a multi-year support program that is a unified trust fund aimed at strengthening our defense capabilities) are progressing very slowly and with large cash shortfalls. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members have pledged to allocate €500 million annually to Ukraine as part of the Comprehensive Defense Assistance Package. However, according to ZN.UA, to date our partners from the Alliance have allocated only about one tenth of the required amount of these funds.

In fact, by coming up with a mission of the Transformation Alliance special for Ukraine, Washington wants to give nothing to Kyiv, filling the content of the summit with empty initiatives and limiting itself to repeating the formula of the Vilnius summit: the invitation will be sent when the allies decide. But before this bright future we still need to stay alive on the battlefield. And the question is not whether our country will end up in a gray zone or become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but whether Ukraine will remain on the political map, and Ukrainians on the ethnographic map.

It is possible that in order to put a beautiful wrapper on the Washington summit, the White House will decide to sign a bilateral agreement on security cooperation with the Ukrainian side. Let us recall that such agreements are elements of the implementation of the “porcupine strategy”, which are aimed at strengthening the defense capability of our country. These bilateral agreements will not protect us in the future from new Russian aggression. But they increase the cost of invasion for the aggressor.

As Rasmussen Global Center expert Harry Nedelku noted at the Kyiv Security Forum, “there is an opinion that inviting Ukraine to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) leads to an escalation of war. But Putin is escalating the war all the time. Inviting Ukraine to the Washington summit could reduce the escalation.” In turn, former Ambassador of the United States of America to Ukraine, partner at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, Steven Pifer, believes that if Ukraine is left without the membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), “this will be a recipe for instability.”

So it turns out that the lack of an invitation for Ukraine to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an invitation to Putin to continue the war to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians.

Read this article in Ukrainian and russian.