Ukraine’s NATO membership: Why Kyiv is in a Catch-22 situation

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that he has returned with “a good result” from the NATO summit in Lithuania after receiving some security guarantees from the G7 countries. But given that no concrete assurance has come from NATO about Ukraine’s membership, Kyiv finds itself in a catch-22 situation. -- Writes ETV Bharat’s Aroonim Bhuyan.

New Delhi: After describing NATO’s decision to not set a timeframe for the membership of Ukraine as “absurd”, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has now said that he is returning from the alliance’s summit in Lithuania with “a good result”.

“We are returning home with a good result for our country, and very importantly, for our warriors. A good reinforcement with weapons,” Zelenskyy tweeted on Thursday. “It is very important: for the first time since independence, we have formed a security foundation for Ukraine on its way to NATO. These are concrete security guarantees that are confirmed by the top 7 democracies in the world. Never before have we had such a security foundation, and this is the level of the G7.”

• We are returning home with a good result for our country, and very importantly, for our warriors. A good reinforcement with weapons.
  
  It is very important: for the first time since independence, we have formed a security foundation for Ukraine on its way to NATO. These are… pic.twitter.com/zA0hvg7sIi

  — Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 12, 2023 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="

  We are returning home with a good result for our country, and very importantly, for our warriors. A good reinforcement with weapons.
  
  It is very important: for the first time since independence, we have formed a security foundation for Ukraine on its way to NATO. These are… pic.twitter.com/zA0hvg7sIi

  — Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 12, 2023

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  We are returning home with a good result for our country, and very importantly, for our warriors. A good reinforcement with weapons.
  
  It is very important: for the first time since independence, we have formed a security foundation for Ukraine on its way to NATO. These are… pic.twitter.com/zA0hvg7sIi

  — Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 12, 2023

Zelenskyy also stated that Ukraine will “build a new, legally binding architecture of bilateral security treaties with the most powerful countries”. On Tuesday, NATO leaders said that they would allow Ukraine to join the alliance “when allies agree and conditions are met”. The member states of the alliance did not set any timeframe for Ukraine’s membership. Instead, it removed some obstacles on Ukraine’s membership path.

"We reaffirmed Ukraine will become a member of the NATO and agreed to remove the requirement for a membership action plan,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters at the summit in Vilnius. To this, Zelenskyy had reacted sharply.

“It’s unprecedented and absurd when a timeframe is set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership,” he had tweeted. “While at the same time, vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine. It seems there is no readiness to invite Ukraine to NATO or to make it a member of NATO.”

Though now Zelenskyy says that he has returned with a good result from Lithuania, the fact of the matter is that there is no clarity at all as to whether Ukraine will get NATO membership or not. In fact, the Russian invasion of Ukraine started precisely because of Kyiv’s desire to join NATO.

“Ukraine has an unreasonably high expectation of joining NATO,” Nandan Unnikrishnan, Distinguished Fellow in the Observer Research Foundation, told ETV Bharat. “NATO is not ready to get into a war with Russia,” Unnikrishnan, who specialises in Russia, Central Asia and other former Soviet territories, said.

So, will Ukraine have to cede territory to Russia if it wants to get NATO membership? “Absolutely. After all, the agreement the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine had reached in Turkey in March 2022 is also no longer on the table,” Unnikrishnan said.

In March 2022, the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine, following negotiations in Turkey, had reached an agreement, according to which Ukraine will adopt a neutral status by not joining NATO and Russian forces will return to their pre-invasion positions from all Ukrainian territories except Crimea which Moscow had annexed prior to the current war.

But former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly scuttled the deal during a visit to Kyiv. He urged Zelenskyy to not continue peace negotiations with Russia because of two reasons: Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot be negotiated with, and the West is not ready for the war to end. Following this, Zelinskiy returned to his earlier position of not yielding any territory of his country to Russia and still seeking membership of NATO.

“Ukraine strives to achieve a just and lasting peace that involves not only the restoration of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country but also the receipt of international guarantees,” an international relations expert based in Kyiv has stated. “Acquiring full membership in NATO is the main priority for Ukraine, but before joining the organisation, Ukraine seeks to receive clear and written guarantees of its security at the NATO summit.”

But Zelenskyy could return from Lithuania only with some security guarantees from the G7 countries among the 31-nation NATO. With no concrete assurance from NATO about Ukraine’s membership and Russia continuing its invasion, Kyiv has now found itself in a Catch-22 situation.