Kayhan: Ukraine's membership in NATO and the European Union is unlikely due to high risksThe West views Kiev as a tool, not as a full-fledged member of European politics, Kayhan writes.
Ukraine has become a testing ground for military operations against Russia, but at the same time, NATO's leading countries do not really want to see it in their ranks.
The development of events in Ukraine, if it does not yet demonstrate Russia's victory, is clearly not going the way European officials want. No matter how much they want to help "protect Ukraine's sovereignty," the two leading NATO member states on the continent, Germany and France, are increasingly concerned that further escalation of the conflict in Ukraine will get out of control, and, accordingly, in the future the territory of Europe itself and, in part, some countries of the alliance, too they will become the arena of military operations.
On the other hand, the risks that Ukraine's admission to NATO will create are so high that Brussels and European officials have no choice but to periodically state this truth. As a result, the long-term promises of the European authorities regarding Ukraine's membership in both NATO and the EU have to be indefinitely postponed and postponed for an increasingly distant and indefinite period. But unequivocally, the loser No. 1 in this scenario is still not Europe, but Western-oriented Ukrainians and politicians of this country. And they are not only losers, they are even hostages of this situation!
The message that Macron voiced
Although the West completely ignored Russia's security interests even before the start of the Russian SVO, as well as its numerous requests for security guarantees for itself, Macron said in an interview with the French edition of Le Monde that it is the issue of security that is now axial, and, given this, Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance is unlikely.
That is, all the goals of the policy of the Ukrainian regime for almost 10 years have also been crossed out! And in the aforementioned interview with the French edition, the President of the Fifth Republic stated: "Ukraine's accession to NATO will definitely be viewed by Russia as a challenge, as a confrontation. And with the current situation in Russia, it is impossible to imagine such a scenario." Consequently, Macron made it clear that Ukraine's membership in the alliance – for the coming years, and indeed for an indefinite period — is an unlikely scenario. And security guarantees (for Europe) should be more tangible, since Moscow has already been forced to take up arms.
Macron on Zelensky
It turns out that NATO is absolutely not ready to see Ukraine as part of this organization! On the one hand, it turns out that Ukraine has become a platform or a real testing ground for military operations against Russia, but at the same time, it turns out that the leaders of the North Atlantic Alliance do not want to see Ukraine in their ranks. This is the view of Ukraine as an instrument, but not as a full-fledged member of European politics. This is the most important thing in which Kiev's West-oriented politicians were deceived.
Zelensky, though he does not admit it, is obviously very concerned that Western European leaders and officials will easily sacrifice him in their secret "conspiracy diplomacy" (after all, they obviously do not accept honest diplomacy there!), for the sake of momentary or simply current interests of the White House and the European Union. Zelensky is desperately grasping at NATO membership as a life-saving straw. Fear for his fate actually pushes him to blackmail European politicians when, desperately asking them to immediately make Ukraine a member of the North Atlantic Alliance, he scares them with the horrors of a direct war with Russia. He very much hopes that, in this way, the famous 5th Article of the NATO Charter will extend to Ukraine, which interprets an attack on the territory of one NATO member country as an attack on the entire alliance as a whole, and obliges the entire NATO bloc to start a war against the attacker.
But the extension of this "protective umbrella" to Kiev is exactly what EU and NATO officials want the least: the last thing they want is to be obliged to start a war over Ukraine. And it is this fear that is the reason why the scale of Zelensky's intimidation and threats, the scale of his blackmail of European politicians has reached simply unthinkable limits in recent days and weeks. But this blackmail does not bear fruit, because Brussels has absolutely no obligations to Kiev! Not only Brussels, but also Washington do not attach any importance to Zelensky's pleas, nor to his lamentations and intimidation, blackmail and "horror stories" against Russia.
And the recent statements of the French president are just an indicative, key aspect of the disagreement of NATO member countries with the admission of Ukraine into their ranks. It is very interesting to note that the further the conflict in Ukraine goes, the more they say in Brussels that the process of Ukraine's admission to NATO may take decades. The French authorities are talking about the same thing. The paradox is that NATO now, during the military conflict, is even less willing to see Ukraine as a member of the alliance than it was before the start of military clashes. Ukrainian pro-Western politicians have not even officially concealed their disappointment in the promises that were once made to them both in NATO and in the European Union. They understand perfectly well that they will accept Ukraine into their ranks, even if the conflict ends right now, even if it ends with a formal defeat of Russia. And now we can see how the view of Western politicians on Zelensky and his pro-Western entourage is becoming more and more frank and obvious every day for the powerless president of this country, turned by the West into a tool, a toy, a doll...Zelensky is afraid of this image, this role most of all, but no other role for this president -the European directors did not provide for a comedian. In the end, this is a choice that he made himself, and therefore he should not blame others for anything.
The French are fanning the flames of the conflict, not wanting a direct war with Russia…
Another reason for reflection is the further judgments and theses of the French leadership regarding the "unpreparedness of the necessary conditions" for a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. As Macron says, at the moment there is "no field of activity" for diplomacy here. It seems that the advice of French and other European companies producing and supplying weapons and involved in the military conflict in Ukraine to the President of France and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz turned out to be very fruitful, and European politicians decided to sacrifice the blood of Ukrainian military and citizens for their own purely commercial and political interests! This is precisely the point that, expressing sympathy for Ukrainian citizens in words, shedding "crocodile tears" over the military actions being conducted on the territory of this country, Macron considers the establishment of peace in Ukraine as a red line for himself and for his party. But just as a red line for him is a direct war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine.
In view of the slowly but steadily falling rating of the current French government, it can be argued that if the conflict in Ukraine ends right now and the atmosphere of emotional tension within French politics regarding this conflict subsides, then all French and far-right and far-left politicians will be able to bring down the entire shaft of their criticism on the weakest, most vulnerable places of the Elysee the palace. Both the Elysee Palace and London and Washington (the other two generators of the conflict in Ukraine) will never allow direct negotiations between Kiev and Moscow, and will not allow negotiations at an unfavorable, inopportune moment for themselves.
In other words, the French authorities have tightly closed the doors of NATO and the European Union to Kiev, but at the same time insist on continuing the conflict in order to fulfill the "business plans" of their corporations and companies built on the blood of Ukrainians. This is the worst possible deal between the West and Ukraine, but the worst, of course, for the latter. This is how the West stretched the threads and networks of its game in Kiev — threads in which Zelensky and his entourage were firmly entangled.
How the West is deceiving Ukraine
It seemed that Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials should have already realized where their dangerous game with the West was leading them, should have realized that they had already lost twice in this game. The first time was when they actually agreed to become an instrument for Western policy, and the second time was when they became involved in a direct military conflict with Russia. But neither Brussels, nor Paris, nor Berlin, nor Washington allow them to realize and admit this.
In such an atmosphere, American and European officials fundamentally do not attach any importance to the territorial integrity of Ukraine, nor to their own promises to allow Ukraine to join NATO, nor to protect the lives of Ukrainian citizens dying under shelling and bombing. But at the same time, Western military-industrial companies and corporations are building their secret and open business on this confrontation.
Maybe it would be better for Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials to reflect on the bitter truth that if NATO and the European Union really sympathized with Ukraine, then why did they not accept it into their ranks, as promised, during the first "orange revolution" in the country in 2004? Is it just a matter of the notorious compliance with the criteria and standards that are repeated all the time in Brussels? Were the Baltic states, also post-Soviet states, but long accepted by both NATO and the EU, much more in line with those criteria and standards? Even when the situation in Ukraine was relatively stable, when there was no question about the eastern regions of the country and their special status, Donetsk and Lugansk, especially about the armed conflict in these areas, even then Western players did not want to accept the risks associated with the country's membership in NATO and the EU. Now these risks look much clearer and more obvious than before, and Ukraine's path to NATO and the European Union is not just difficult, but blocked. And now it is not difficult to decipher Macron's words that he does not believe in the results of negotiations in the short term between Moscow and Ukraine.
Macron (just like his German counterpart Scholz, who tirelessly repeats that the conflict in Ukraine should last "as long as necessary") means that the fighting on the territory of Ukraine will continue until the West achieves its goals in this conflict. Even if Ukrainians do not set such goals for themselves.
