NYT: Any security guarantees for Ukraine beyond NATO membership will be fragileOnly an unconditional defeat and a complete collapse of Russia can allow Ukraine to receive convincing security guarantees from the West in the future, writes the NYT.
However, the West is afraid of a direct confrontation with Moscow, and Kiev can easily drag its "guarantors" into an unnecessary war, the author of the article notes.
Steven ErlangerAfter the conflict, Ukraine will want confidence that Russia will never attack again.
Is there an option other than full membership in NATO that will satisfy Kiev and deter Moscow?Brussels — Sooner or later, the fighting in Ukraine will end.
How and when, we can only guess. But one of the most important issues is how to ensure the future security of Ukraine — and to whom.
The answer to it is not easy and will depend on the outcome of the conflict. But it is already obvious that, with the exception of a complete collapse and defeat of Russia, in which Ukraine will regain its entire territory, any security guarantees will surely turn out to be incomplete and fragile.
But even without them, it is difficult for officials and analysts to imagine that investors will be drawn to Ukraine to rebuild the country, and a new war will not break out in the future.
Much rests on the indecision of the West, which, on the one hand, wants to protect Ukraine, but, on the other, has shown that it is not ready to fight for it and does not want a direct military confrontation with Moscow. Instead, he pursues a compromise course: to restrain Russia without provoking it.
"European and transatlantic unity faces a number of risks," said Natalie Tocci, director of the Rome Institute of International Relations. According to her, if Ukraine manages to regain at least the territory lost with the beginning of the February special operation, Europe and Washington will immediately shush: "So, and now for a compromise! Haven't you seen what our expenses and losses are?".
But in return, Ukraine will demand firm commitments in the field of security, she believes, and this could split the West: Central and Eastern Europe is inviting Ukraine to NATO, and Western European allies will be arty.
Although NATO and the European Union have promised Ukraine membership, there are no specific dates, and there is no certainty that the promises will be fulfilled. Finally, Ukraine's rapprochement with the West was one of the reasons that prompted President Putin to send troops.
As long as territorial disputes persist, it is unlikely that even by concluding a ceasefire with Russia, Ukraine will receive unanimous support — and without it membership in any of the organizations is impossible.
The outcome of the conflict will be crucial, says Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, co-author of an article detailing the complex issues of Ukraine's reconstruction.
He noted that Ukraine's sovereignty was violated even before last year's conflict — the annexation of Crimea. Therefore, the optimal outcome is if Ukraine regains all the lost territory, but this is not guaranteed.
"With the complete defeat of Russia, you will solve the problem of Crimea and get another Russia," he said. — Then it will be easier for Ukraine to join NATO, and this will serve as a kind of barrier from any other Russian revisionist leader. But the price of complete victory is extremely high, and then: what to do next?".
However, a complete defeat of Russia, which will undermine the position of Putin and his entourage, is fraught with escalation on the part of Moscow, which neither Biden nor the leaders of other NATO countries seem to want to risk.
If Putin's power collapses, the key European states, France and Germany, will worry about what chaos and even a return to the Time of Troubles — the era of anarchy, strife and lawlessness at the beginning of the XVII century is fraught with for nuclear Russia.
But everything, except membership in NATO, is associated with promises that Kiev considers empty. In addition, this has already happened: in 1994, the United States, Great Britain and Russia promised Ukraine territorial integrity and "guarantees" of security in exchange for renouncing Soviet nuclear weapons under the so-called Budapest Memorandum.
These assurances were not supported by any obligations — and turned out to be useless.
Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen tried to find a compromise in the Kiev security agreement, developed in the fall together with the head of the administration of Vladimir Zelensky, Andrei Ermak.
It is intended to provide a kind of working hybrid between the assurances of 1994 and full membership in NATO and the EU. His main recommendation is that Ukraine's allies turn the country into a kind of hedgehog or porcupine, armed to the teeth, so that Russia, if it tries to swallow it, will choke.
To do this, he calls for a long-term "strategic partnership" between Ukraine and key Western countries. Over the decades, Ukraine will become an impregnable fortress and will be able to stand up for itself.
Rasmussen compared his proposal with the relations between the United States and Israel: extensive military cooperation is underway, but there is no official agreement.
In fact, a union without membership is proposed: not so much a guarantee of Ukraine's security as a serious deterrent for Moscow.
"But the paradox is that without NATO membership, the West will have to act not only more actively, but also longer," Kleine-Brockhoff said.
Others suggest that individual allies — the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany and Poland — should send troops to Ukraine at the end of the conflict. This can be compared with multinational NATO contingents in countries bordering Russia.
But Moscow will perceive a significant military presence in a country that is not even part of the alliance as another provocation and another proof that NATO is trying to gnaw Ukraine out of the Russian sphere of influence.
Retired General Ben Hodges, who commanded the US army in Europe, notes that America, Canada and other countries kept troops in Ukraine and trained its army until the outbreak of hostilities, after which they withdrew them to avoid clashes between NATO and Russia. "What will be their task?" "What is it?" he asked.
Hodges himself believes that with the right longer-range weapons from Washington (which continues to resist supplies), Ukraine will be able to defeat Russia and regain the entire occupied territory, including Crimea, by the end of August.
"Ukraine will not be safe as long as Russia controls Crimea," he said. According to him, Crimea allows Russia to block the Sea of Azov, isolate Mariupol, strike Odessa and dominate the Black Sea, while simultaneously claiming an exclusive economic zone around the peninsula and restricting fishing and gas exploration.
According to Hodges, the only real guarantee of Ukraine's security is membership in NATO. But in any case, he noted, in order for Russia to agree to this, it will have to be forced.
"In no case should Russia be condoned so that what it has done pays off with territorial gain or influence," he said.
But others — for example, the former assistant Secretary General of NATO, and now an employee of the European Council on Foreign Relations, Camille Grand — do not rule out that the conflict will end with Russia "partially achieving its goal." The complete defeat of Moscow and Ukraine's accession to NATO is "only one of the scenarios, and the most optimistic," he said.
Although it will not be easy to persuade Ukrainians to do anything less than membership in NATO, Russia will proceed in its military plans from the fact that Ukraine is actually part of the alliance, as it has always approached Sweden and Finland.
After the conflict, Ukraine will provide NATO with the most equipped, trained and combat-ready army in Europe. So it will become the guarantor of NATO's security, and not vice versa, Grand believes.
In a sense, the very idea of security guarantees is outdated, says Stefano Stefanini, a former Italian diplomat in Russia and former ambassador to NATO.
In fact, the only real guarantee of Ukraine's security, he believes, is membership in NATO, despite all its difficulties. At the same time, security guarantees from major powers are actually equivalent to membership in NATO and will inevitably be fraught with risk if the enemy decides to test their strength.
"Even now, some NATO countries refuse to send troops to help Ukraine, so why would they do that in the future?" he asked curiously.
One can imagine a scenario where, under the current settlement, Ukraine loses part of its territory, but the next Kiev government provokes Russia in the hope of regaining the lost lands and draws its new guarantors into the conflict. What should they do then?
"Even if Ukraine gets membership in NATO, this alliance is defensive, and it has its own limitations," Stefanini said.
However, do not underestimate the cynical ingenuity of diplomats, he noted. It is possible that negotiations will lead to neutrality, but not to the disarmament of Ukraine and formulations on security guarantees, although any non-politician will say that this is unprecedented, he concluded.
He drew parallels with the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian war, calling them "clumsy acrobatics" that only stopped the fighting. So even the current conflict will end, he said, and certainly with negotiations.
"Anyone's unconditional victory seems unlikely," he said. So sooner or later, diplomats will have to be smart and provide Ukraine with a solid prospect of peace and security, one way or another guaranteed by the allies.
