Discussions have recently sharply intensified about a scheme to end the war along the front line, with the part of Ukraine controlled by Kyiv joining NATO and receiving security guarantees that will make a new invasion impossible.
According to this scheme, lands captured by Russia would not be officially recognised as the territory of the Russian Federation (considering this is still the internationally recognised territory of Ukraine), but the security guarantee would not apply to them. If Russia attacks Ukraine again, then Article 5 of NATO may be invoked, but if Ukraine’s armed forces wanted to recapture the occupied territories, the Alliance would not enter into a new war between Russia and Ukraine.
Former NATO Secretary-General, Stoltenberg, cited the example of West Germany, which was a member of NATO during the Cold War, and considered East Germany constitutionally part of its territory, but the Alliance’s security guarantees did not apply to the latter.
Western media write that Ukrainian authorities are also ready to consider such a scenario and it is now becoming almost the main concept of Ukraine and the West for the end of the war.
True, in Kyiv, at the official level, this is still being denied. Zelensky continues to insist the war should end with Russia’s exit to the 1991 borders.
But if we assume stopping the war along the front line would be the option most acceptable for Ukrainian society and its authorities, what follows is a truce, with Ukraine’s subsequent entry into NATO and the receipt of full security guarantees.
But how realistic is this?
Western countries and Ukrainian authorities like to repeat the phrase “Russia does not have the right to veto Ukraine’s entry into NATO.”
But this is not true.
Russia de facto had, has and will have the right to veto Ukraine’s entry into the Alliance as long as it has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons and as long as NATO countries do not want to enter into a direct war with it.
This was obvious even before 2022, when even a completely hypothetical (at that time) threat of war prompted Western countries to actually block Ukraine’s path to the Alliance (although after 2014 the Ukrainian authorities were ready to join).
It is even more difficult to imagine this now, when the threat of war between the Russian Federation and NATO has moved from the hypothetical to the probable category.
Even if we assume Russia will suddenly agree to stop the war without an agreement with Ukraine on its neutral status, but simply according to the “Korean scenario” of an indefinite truce along the front line, there is no guarantee NATO will agree to take in Ukraine, whose border with Russia will not be legally fixed by mutual agreement of the two countries and, de facto, will remain a frozen front line.
In order to accept Ukraine into NATO under such conditions, all members of the Alliance must be ready to tell Putin something like this: “if even one Russian shell or FPV drone flies across the front line into Ukrainian territory, it will mean that Russia has declared war on the entire Alliance. The very next day, all NATO countries will begin military action against Russia. And if Moscow uses nuclear weapons, then in response we will launch a nuclear strike on the Russian Federation. Let the whole world go to pieces, but we and the Ukrainians will go to heaven, and you will simply die.”
Obviously, there are currently no signs that any leader of the main Western countries will dare to say this, even if a ceasefire is concluded, not to mention declaring it in the midst of military action.
The West is not ready to expose itself to the risk of a nuclear war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine. This has been confirmed many times in recent years.
True, there is another theory that says that Russia would benefit from Ukraine joining the Alliance, put forward by Henry Kissinger. In his opinion, if Ukraine is accepted into NATO, it will guarantee the UAF will not attempt to recapture by force territories seized by the Russian Federation. Furthermore, if the war stops along the front line, then nuclear power Russia is unlikely to be very afraid the Ukrainian army will try to recapture territories by military means, given that from 2014-2022 Ukraine did not make any attempt to recapture Crimea by force after its annexation.
Taking all this into account, Ukraine’s accession to NATO can only take place if the Russian Federation lifts its “veto”.
This can happen in two ways.
The first is under duress – due to defeats at the front or destabilisation within the Russian Federation. As Western media wrote, that was the strategic calculation of the Ukrainian authorities in 2023 on the eve of the UAF’s counter-offensive. Kyiv expected to reach the border with Crimea, after which it would issue an ultimatum to Russia – agree to Ukraine’s membership in NATO, or Ukrainian troops would launch an offensive on the peninsula that would be difficult for the Russians to defend due to logistical constraints. Ukrainian authorities officially denied they had such a plan, but it looked quite logical. In the event, it was not destined to come true. The Russian army repelled the UAF offensive, and then took the initiative. At the moment, the prospects of a military defeat of the Russian Federation or the beginning of “turmoil” in Russia look quite doubtful.
The second way is an agreement with Russia – some kind of deal. For example, Ukraine officially recognises Ukrainian lands seized by the Russian Federation as Russian territory, and the West, accordingly, lifts sanctions. Russia agrees to Ukraine’s membership in NATO. Or, for example, if the West and Russia conclude a strategic alliance, uniting in the “Global North” and then both Ukraine and Russia join NATO together.
The desire to somehow normalise relations with the Russian Federation is often cited in the media as one of the reasons why leading Western countries have slowed down and are slowing down the process of Ukraine’s accession to NATO: Washington and the EU do not want to finally close the door to future agreements with the Russian Federation.
But for now, such agreements are purely hypothetical. Until the issue of Russia’s “veto” is resolved, the matter of Ukraine’s accession to NATO is unlikely to approach the stage of practical implementation.
Hence Ukraine must (a) either continue to fight until the Russian Federation is forced to change its position on NATO under the weight of military and other problems (but will this happen or will the UAF’s situation at the front get even worse?), or (b) work towards stopping the war on certain conditions, leaving aside the subject of NATO, based on the fact that the only real guarantor of Ukraine’s sovereignty and security is a powerful Ukrainian army.
Translated by Geoffrey Roberts
