At the conclusion of the NATO summit last week in Lithuania, everybody involved tried to smooth over a major rift that broke out between Ukraine, which wanted a clear timetable for joining the alliance, and Western allies who didn’t want to specify a timeline.
Maybe after Russia’s war on Ukraine ends, US President Joe Biden said.
By the summit’s climax last Wednesday, all sides had tried to smooth over the differences with soothing words while NATO showered Ukraine with another bounty of weapons to fight off Russia.
NATO also created a group called the NATO-Ukraine Council to coordinate cooperation. In the end, though, the feel-good theatrics didn’t sell as talk of “unity” from all sides rang hollow.
To recap: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky torpedoed a prepared script meant to show Russia that the West and Kiev were in determined lockstep.
But on the eve of the NATO summit in Vilnius, Zelensky launched sharp criticisms of NATO’s apparent decision to withhold a clear timeline for Ukraine’s membership in the alliance.
“It’s unprecedented and absurd (that a) timeframe is set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership, while at the same time vague wording about “conditions” is added even for inviting Ukraine,” he wrote.
Zelensky then performed the necessary ritual of thanking NATO and told reporters, “The results of the summit are good. The Ukrainian delegation is bringing home a significant security victory for the Ukraine, for our country, for our people, for our children.”
At first, that seemed sufficient contrition. But no. After Zelensky had left Vilnius, a gaggle of unnamed NATO officials unloaded harsh criticism against the leader.
According to an article in the Washington Post, some officials wanted to punish Zelensky for his outburst.
“The incident illustrates the frustration inside NATO with Zelensky’s pressure tactics, where even some of his strongest backers questioned this week whether he was serving Ukraine’s interests,” the paper said.
What all this means for the war effort will probably be clear in the coming months. Ukraine’s current counteroffensive is going slowly. If anything, a clear statement on future NATO membership instead of an unseemly blame game would have represented a morale boost.
The oddest thing about the episode may have been that NATO leaders were caught by surprise by Zelensky’s complaints. His dissatisfaction had been building for months. In April, he launched a heated critique of allies for failing to deliver top items on his military wish list: jet bombers and advanced anti-aircraft weapons.
Such arms are valuable in part to support ground offensives of the type Ukraine launched over a month ago.
“Unfortunately, Ukraine has not yet received enough anti-missile systems from the West. It has not yet accepted military aircraft and has not accepted what partners can offer,” Zelensky said in a televised address.
“Every Russian missile that hits our cities and every bomb that is dropped on our people, our children, only adds a black shadow to the history of those on whom the decision depends,” he said.
An announcement by Biden to supply cluster bombs to Ukraine inadvertently exemplified Ukraine’s problem of getting timely allied supplies. Cluster bombs are flocks of armaments dropped over a wide area on enemy troops that might have been useful earlier in Ukraine’s current offensive, which began last month. Ukraine had requested the cluster munitions last December.
The end of the Vilnius summit is unlikely to represent the last display of tension between Ukraine and its NATO allies.
At an open forum in Vilnius, Ukrainian activist Daria Kaleniuk asked Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, “What should I tell my son? That President Biden and NATO didn’t invite Ukraine to NATO because he’s afraid of Russia, afraid of Russia losing, afraid of Ukraine winning?”
Ukrainian fears are rooted in the country’s post-Soviet relations with the West, where governments have often been ambivalent about guaranteeing the country’s security.
During the 1990s, after the breakup of the Soviet Union of which Ukraine was a part, then-president Leonid Kuchma hesitated to give up the nuclear arsenal Ukraine had inherited.
Kuchma feared surrendering the arsenal would leave Ukraine helpless to deter future domination, if not aggression, by Russia. He wanted atomic weapons as a deterrent; NATO membership was not presented as an option.
Russian president Boris Yeltsin was unwilling to let independent Ukraine keep its arsenal of nuclear warheads. The United States, eager to promote nuclear reductions generally, preferred that all former Soviet atomic weapons be turned over to Russia. That not only included Ukraine’s cache but also arsenals held by Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Strenuous diplomacy resulted in the so-called Budapest Memorandum. It was meant to ease security concerns of the three newly-independent nuclear-armed countries – in particular Ukraine.
In the memorandum, Russia, along with the US and Great Britain, pledged “to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence” of the three former Soviet Republics, “except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
Moscow, Washington and London also pledged “to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest” Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Ukraine turned over its nuclear weapons.
Confirming Ukraine’s worse fears, Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Putin, who considered the breakup of the Soviet Union a tragedy, ignored the memo Yeltsin had signed.
The Crimea takeover fueled Ukrainian desires for a new and reliable deterrent: NATO membership. NATO membership had already been provided to former Warsaw Pact Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, as well as to Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, which like Ukraine were former Soviet republics.
But in 2008, NATO countries meeting in Bucharest offered Ukraine and Georgia, which was already a victim of a Russian invasion in 2008, only a vague pledge that they would eventually “become members of NATO.”
Ukrainians have publicly criticized the 2008 failure to pin down a NATO commitment as an abject lesson. Some critics have laid retrospective blame on Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor in 2008, and Nicholas Sarkozy, France’s president at the time.
Last April, Zelensky called the 2008 indecision a “miscalculation,” saying it cast a shadow over Merkel’s 16-year legacy as Germany’s leader.
“I invite Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy to visit Bucha and see what the policy of concessions to Russia has led to in 14 years,” referring to the site of alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine during the current war.
Pointing fingers solely at European leaders for indecision avoids the touchy subject of US attitudes toward Ukraine’s NATO aspiration. In 2008, then-president George W Bush was ambivalent. His successor, Barack Obama, wanted to improve relations with Moscow and declined to press NATO to admit Ukraine.
American reluctance didn’t mollify Putin. His response to NATO’s vague Bucharest statement was negative.
Putin’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at the time, “We will do all we can to prevent Ukraine’s and Georgia’s accession into NATO and to avoid an inevitable serious exacerbation of our relations with both the alliance and our neighbors.”
“Russia opposes the plan to grant membership on the grounds that such a move would pose a direct threat to its security.”
Curiously, Zelensky and Putin both share deep suspicions about NATO’s vague stand on Kiev’s eventual membership. Zelensky because he thinks NATO never intends to let his country in, and Putin because he’s sure it will.