A bridge instead of an invitation: What Ukraine can expect at the NATO Summit in Washington

They will include updates on our progress towards joining NATO, but also the decision the Alliance will make on Ukraine's future membership. Despite contradictory statements from President Biden, support for Ukraine's future NATO membership is still US policy.

European Pravda discussed expectations of the NATO summit in Washington with Hanna Shelest, Head of the Ukrainian Prism Security Programmes at the Foreign Policy Council, during the Black Sea Security Forum.

On the Invitation to join NATO

It is important to understand that Ukraine will not receive an invitation to join the Alliance at the summit in Washington. 

This has been clear since the last NATO summit in Vilnius. It is crucial for us to avoid last year's problem when Ukraine arrived in Vilnius with overly high expectations, ignoring warnings from its partners, and was left disappointed with the outcome.

Moreover, in Vilnius, we had a much better chance of getting what we wanted than we do in Washington. The reasons are mostly unrelated to Ukraine: events within and around the Alliance are simply not in our favour.

However, discussions regarding [NATO] membership will still take place.

While a legal invitation is not ready to be extended to us, the allies intend to agree on new wording on Ukraine's future membership.

There is a general recognition that the decision made in Vilnius regarding Ukraine was not just extremely weak: it actually harmed the Alliance, including in terms of its international image. Many at NATO headquarters warned about this back then. The Baltic allies have also openly stated that these wordings were disgraceful and needed to be reconsidered. Most importantly, the US has realised this, too.

Washington is talking about a "bridge to membership" that they want to mention in the summit declaration. The goal is to make Ukraine feel that there is something more than just the "NATO doors open wide" that we have been hearing about for years.

What will the Alliance’s wording be?

There is currently no consensus. The process is still ongoing. Last year, before Vilnius, the discussions continued right up until the summit, and then the wording regarding Ukraine was changed at very short notice. Theoretically, there is a chance of that happening in Washington, although agreement will most likely be reached in advance. This time, the Americans are very keen to avoid any surprises.

On membership conditions

In fact, NATO does not have a wide range of options for wording regarding Ukraine's future membership.

The best option for us would be if the Alliance defined a list of conditions that Kyiv has to meet in order to secure an invitation and the start of accession negotiations. After all, both the decision of the Vilnius NATO summit and even the recently signed security agreement with the United States contain the phrase that "Ukraine will become a member when it meets the conditions and when the allies are ready." So Ukraine says: if we have to meet conditions for membership, then name them!

But the United States is not ready for this.

They do not want to add anything specific.

Recently, I had an unpleasant discussion at a closed meeting in Washington, where American officials reduced the conversation to the "when Ukraine is ready" line.

I couldn't hold back and responded: "Let's be honest: we are ready. It’s you and the Germans who are not ready. And you are not ready to call things what they are." And judging by their reactions, it was clear they knew I was right, but they couldn’t admit it.

If we were being criticised for not reforming the Security Service of Ukraine, or needing to strengthen cybersecurity, or something else, that would be understandable, and we in Ukraine would know what to work on. Even if we were told that the war has to end first, that too could be understood and justified. Instead, an absence of requirements is hidden behind this phrase about Ukraine allegedly being "not ready".

So the main and only real obstacle is this political aspect – our partners’ lack of readiness for Ukraine to join NATO.

What Ukraine will get at the Summit

However, the lack of any breakthrough on the membership issue does not mean the summit will be a bad one for us. 

Yes, the ultimate goal is NATO membership and collective defence under Article 5. But there are also other substantive decisions that we are anticipating will be made at the summit. And these are not just about additional aid packages, which we will certainly hear about in Washington.

These decisions include the JATEC – a joint training centre for the Armed Forces of Ukraine which is currently being established in Poland. The format for its future work is still being discussed, but it will be a joint centre, a new body for cooperation between Ukraine and NATO.

There is also discussion about the potential partial transition of the Ramstein format (also known as the Ukraine Defence Contact Group – ed.) to NATO auspices. Additionally, there will be decisions that do not directly mention Ukraine but will have a clear impact on us.

For example, there is a process called "military Schengen" – an agreement among NATO states on rapid logistics for military equipment in Europe. Officially this is not about Ukraine, as the agreement covers only NATO member states, but there are obvious positive consequences for us: weapons for the Armed Forces of Ukraine will move faster.

And if decisions are made by the Black Sea Mine Action Group (Türkiye, Bulgaria and Romania), we will also benefit, as our ships and vessels pass through the territorial waters of these countries. NATO members patrolling  in the Black Sea and strengthening the eastern flank are also a plus for us.

There are also matters of cybersecurity, the defence industry, etc. Overall, based on the experience of previous summits, there will be at least 10-20 articles in the summit's final decision that will have an impact on Ukraine and from which we will benefit. The only question is how capable we will be of leveraging these Alliance decisions to our advantage.

Furthermore, there is an important process on the sidelines of the summit concerning security agreements with Ukraine.

Security agreements as a "bridge to NATO"

Ukraine has signed nearly two dozen security agreements with many partners, and signed an agreement with the US only a week ago. And Washington says they are already starting to work on a new multilateral agreement on Ukrainian security which will unite all those who have signed or will sign such bilateral agreements with Ukraine.

The partners' agreements with Ukraine are not all the same. 

Some directly specify an amount of aid in the agreement for one or even ten years; some take on other commitments. But the basics of all the agreements are very similar. And this is no coincidence. The Americans admit that they coordinated the drafting of the agreements to ensure that they all have common elements. Specifically, all include support for our future membership of NATO.

For this reason, the United States would like to sign a unifying agreement, which may become an additional element of this "bridge to NATO".

However, its parameters are still undefined.

It has yet to be decided whether this will be an agreement between Ukraine and its partners, or only between the states that have taken on security commitments. There is also the question of the agreement with Japan which we have also signed. Can Japan "be a bridge to NATO"? And ultimately, what is a "bridge to NATO" and what does this term encompass? Is it enough that everyone commits to helping Ukraine?

Negotiations on all these issues are currently at an early stage. There are no answers yet. But what can be said with certainty is that

the security agreements will not turn from a "bridge" into a "substitution" for membership.

Initially, this was cause for concern. We feared that regardless of Ukraine's opinion, partners might perceive these agreements as just that. But now it can be stated that there is no danger of that. Firstly, the texts of the agreements do not confirm this. Secondly, we have met with diplomats from several countries who were drafting their agreements, and they also denied such a possibility.

Each agreement declares support for future membership. It notes that it is not a replacement for it, but rather that the agreements are meant to help Ukraine achieve the reforms necessary for membership.

Non-mandatory agreements?

Although none of the signed agreements require ratification, their clear wording will – hopefully – determine state policy in the future, regardless of which presidents and prime ministers are in office.

Ukraine’s partners say they abandoned ratification in order to speed up the agreements' entry into force and avoid the possibility of them being stalled through procedural measures. Instead, the signatory countries consulted their parliaments, and none of their parliaments were against it.

On the one hand, it is good that this mechanism enabled the implementation of the agreements to begin literally the next day, and the aid specified in the agreements is not being delayed.

However, the absence of ratification still leaves room for problems if another, anti-Ukrainian, political force were suddenly elected.

The question that arises here is: does this mean the agreement might be abandoned in France, where Marine Le Pen's National Rally – which did not support the agreement in parliament – could win the snap election?

The answer is no, because in France, these issues are the responsibility of the president, who is the guarantor of the agreement. And he is not running in the elections. So we can relax, at least until the end of Macron's tenure.

Moreover, the situation with Marine Le Pen is not that straightforward: back in March 2022, she recognised Russia's aggression, abandoned pro-Russian rhetoric and since then, we have not heard any statements from her that justified Putin or Russia’s actions. The reason is that French voters, even far-right ones, mostly support Ukraine and the principles Ukraine stands for.

And Le Pen has to listen to them. 

This is an example of how ultimately, the opinion of voters will be decisive when it comes to the position that European governments adopt in their policy towards Ukraine.

Sergiy Sydorenko, 

Video by Volodymyr Oliinyk, 

European Pravda, Odesa – Kyiv

Translated by Daria Meshcheriakova

Edited by Ivan Zhezhera