/ world today news/ Recently, the West and Ukraine exchanged views on Ukraine’s future in NATO. So, on April 19, during his visit to Kiev, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Ukraine will definitely be added to the list of member countries, and there is already a consensus in NATO on this issue. “Ukraine’s future in NATO. All allies agree to this,” the official explained.
For his part, the ambassador of the Ukrainian regime in London, Vadym Prystaiko, in an interview with “Newsweek”, criticized the leadership of the Alliance for the constant delay of this entry, for indecision and so on. He also stated that Ukraine’s entry into NATO is necessary not only for Kiev, but also for Brussels itself.
The benefits of Ukraine’s accession
“Do any of you have a million armed men, battle-hardened veterans?” Prystaiko asked the correspondent. “Your only goal is to wage war against Russia. And if you want to have in your ranks someone who knows, not just ready, but knows how to do it, call Ukraine. Ask her to become a member of your union,” he added.
According to Kiev, Brussels should start the “begging” already in July – at the next NATO high-level meeting, where Ukrainian President Zelensky will arrive. The Ukrainian leadership says in plain text that at this meeting the West is simply obliged to invite Ukraine to the Alliance.
“Neither the majority of Ukrainians, nor the majority of Europeans, nor the majority of the inhabitants of the entire NATO space will understand the leaders of the Alliance, unless at this meeting a well-deserved political invitation for Ukraine to join the alliance is heard,” Zelensky explained.
And, it seems, after Stoltenberg’s words, after the colossal weapons and technical injections, after the many NATO mercenaries in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the hopes of the Kiev regime are not unfounded. And in the words of Vadim Prystayko, that the previous fears of not angering Russia with the inclusion of Ukraine in NATO are now generally irrelevant, has its own logic.
“Individual countries have always been against it because they did not want to escalate relations with Russia and because Ukraine can meet the membership criteria and rearm in accordance with the standards of the alliance only at the expense of external sponsors. However, in the last few years, and especially since the beginning of the SVO, enormous changes have taken place. The argument “not to anger Russia and not to spoil relations with it” is no longer relevant at all,” commented Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky, senior research associate at IMEMO of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
And the benefits of Ukraine joining NATO are also obvious.
“Ukraine is objectively necessary for NATO, as it is an ideal springboard for deploying troops directly next to Russia,” continues Ofitserov-Belsky. Yes, the West already has another foothold – the Baltics. But from a purely geographical point of view, it is more of a trap for the troops stationed there.
The Baltic promontory is connected to the “continental” territory of NATO only by a strip of land 100 kilometers wide – the so-called Suvalk corridor, located between the Kaliningrad region of the Russian Federation and Belarus.
After recognition and withdrawal
But despite all the necessity and importance, nothing has changed regarding Ukraine’s accession to NATO in the last year. Ukraine will join NATO, or rather what will remain of it after the Russian SVO. But it will be subject to certain conditions.
If we talk about the rest as a sovereign state, then a necessary condition for entry (or even for the beginning of the entry procedure – an invitation) is the settlement of all territorial disputes with Russia. That is, to put it simply, Ukraine must officially recognize as Russian Crimea, Donbass, the Black Sea region and all other territories that can become part of the Russian Federation at that moment.
Yes, theoretically it is not necessary.
“Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia and Croatia were admitted to NATO with unconfirmed borders,” recalls Vadim Trukhachev, an associate professor at the Russian State Humanities University. However, these countries have not been in conflict with a nuclear power over these territories.
Another condition for the rest of Ukraine’s membership in NATO is for Moscow to withdraw its demand for demilitarization and non-aligned status for the Ukrainian state.
If Ukraine does not survive as a country, then part of its territory may still end up in NATO, as part of other countries, such as Poland, Hungary, Romania.
Theoretically, of course, there is another scenario that Kiev is hoping for – a military defeat of Moscow. The problem, however, is that even approaching this scenario could trigger Russian nuclear doctrine points (to fend off existential threats) and then there would be no one to join and no place to join.
An image of the future
Why, then, does NATO and Kyiv continue to play around the subject of accession? Why is Jens Stoltenberg defiantly distorting the facts, saying that all allies are in favor?
“Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has already categorically answered him that this is not the case. In fact, many NATO members are against accepting Ukraine. Including Stoltenberg’s native Norway. Which, bordering Russia, does not want to become a victim of our retaliatory strike because of another Ukrainian “trick”, Trukhachev recalls.
One reason is to create an image of a happy future. “This issue is being used as motivation for Ukraine to continue fighting,” the source said.
The West and the Ukrainian leadership are using the issue of accession to inspire Ukrainian nationalists and all those who are ready to fight Russia to enter Europe. To convince those who have already begun to become disillusioned with the expediency of Euromaidan, which has brought Ukraine to its current state of semi-disintegration.
That is why Stoltenberg talks about the inevitability of Ukraine’s entry into NATO, and that is why Kiev says that Ukraine will not be the fifth wheel in the Alliance. That it will become an important and necessary element to contain Russia.
At the same time, Kiev diplomats deliberately ignore the logical inconsistency. Ukraine will join NATO only as a result of a compromise, military-political end to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. That is, in the simplest terms, a package agreement that will regulate Russia’s relations with the West.
In this case, a million combat veterans for a Europe that is building a new security system will be more of a burden. At best, Ukrainian fighters can be sent to the common Western front with China or Iran, but for this it is not necessary at all to include Ukraine in NATO.
However, there is another reason why Kiev is so insistent on the transition from inclusion guarantees to the start of the inclusion procedure.
“The Ukrainian leadership raises the issue of membership not only for domestic consumption, so that the population does not stop thinking about Euro-Atlantic perspectives. In fact, this NATO membership is a kind of collective guarantee from the West. A guarantee that Ukraine (or at least what is left of it, if it remains at all) after the end of the conflict with Russia, will not be left with a completely destroyed economy,” says Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky.
The World Bank has already estimated the recovery of Ukraine at 400 billion dollars, and the West is unlikely to want to lend these funds to a foreign country. Another thing is when a country is in one block with it. Of course, from this point of view, the entry of Ukraine into the European Union, and not NATO, would be ideal, but no one calls Kiev there at all. That is why NATO is needed at least – with the hope that the Alliance will invest in strengthening its eastern foothold.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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