Why Kyiv has sharply raised the stakes in its statements on NATO accession
Several months ago, a plan emerged in Kyiv and friendly Western capitals whereby NATO’s December foreign ministerial meeting in Brussels was supposed to become pivotal in Ukraine's relations with the Alliance. And this is no exaggeration. Rumours and discussions about Ukraine potentially receiving an official invitation to join were tied to this date.
Trump won the election, and the previous plans became irrelevant.
Nevertheless, the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting is still significant, but in an entirely different way.
Read more about what happened at the NATO meeting and around it, as well as how Ukraine's stance on joining the Alliance is evolving, in the article by Sergiy Sydorenko, a European Pravda editor (from Brussels): NATO guarantees for Ukraine: how and why Kyiv changed its stance in relations with the Alliance.
On the day of the NATO ministerial meeting, Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs published an official statement. Formally, it marked the 30th anniversary of the signing of the infamous Budapest Memorandum, although it was released two days before the actual "anniversary".
It outlines Ukraine's updated position on NATO membership.
The Ministry's statement emphasises that the "shortsightedness" of that decision has harmed not only Ukraine but the world in general. In particular, the West's inability to stop Russia's aggression against a state that voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons has ruined global efforts for nuclear disarmament and pushed other nations to consider acquiring nuclear status.
Therefore, the Foreign Ministry stresses, the international community must not repeat the mistakes made 30 years ago. "Building a European security architecture at the expense of Ukraine's interests, rather than taking them into consideration, is destined to failure," the statement reads.
The statement goes on to officially declare Ukraine’s rejection of all other forms of security guarantees that may be offered to Kyiv as protection from future Russian aggression.
"With the bitter experience of the Budapest Memorandum behind us, we will not accept any alternatives, surrogates or substitutes for Ukraine's full membership in NATO," the statement reads.
"The option of bilateral guarantees from nuclear states is not being considered," one of the President’s team members explained.
It can be assumed that one of the reasons for this shift is the rather weak security agreement made between Ukraine and the United States. This experience demonstrated how limited the "ceiling" is for bilateral guarantees from this nuclear state.
The president had consistently rejected any possibility of "partial NATO membership" – meaning membership that would cover only part of Ukraine – but he has unexpectedly changed his stance. He made two statements during the week saying that this option is now acceptable: Ukraine could join NATO without Article 5 applying to the entire territory.
The key condition, according to Zelenskyy, is that the invitation to join NATO must apply to the entire territory of Ukraine; only the application of the Alliance's collective self-defence rule may be limited to the territories under government control.
This issue was not and should not have been on the agenda of the meeting in Brussels.
Despite the headline-grabbing statements and leaked documents, the discussion at Tuesday’s meeting focused not on membership, but on practical assistance to Ukraine from its allies.
Rather, Ukraine is now focused on practical military issues, just as its partners expected – particularly on agreements regarding air defence to protect Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
The signals from Brussels on this issue are cautiously optimistic.