Ukraine’s NATO Membership

Although not officially a member of NATO, Ukraine became the nation most integrated into the NATO organization. By 2021, Ukraine was as close to being a full NATO member without actually possessing a laminated “NATO membership card.”

There is a persistent minority attempting to rewrite history regarding the Ukraine war. They insist it began as a Russian invasion without any provocation. Some even allege Russia launched a campaign to conquer all of Ukraine with the intention to move on to the rest of Europe with nations falling like dominoes to create a new Russian empire. Sound familiar?

A pair of neocons penned an article claiming a Russia full-scale invasion occurred on February 24, 2022 “expanding dramatically the war against Ukraine [begun] in 2014” without any provocation. A prime reason why Russia invaded Ukraine is due to “an asymmetric balance of power,” these neocons argue. Russia is bigger and militarily more powerful and Ukraine is much too weak to defend itself so invasion was a natural sequence of events. This claim is easily dismissed as wildly absurd. Belarus also borders Russia, has one-fourth the population of Ukraine, and a military about 1/20 the size of Ukraine’s armed forces; yet, Russia has not invaded Belarus due to any power imbalance.

There is even the cartoonish claim “Putin’s deep-seated hatred of democracy” led to the invasion. This is reminiscent of the silly response “Because they hate our freedoms!” to the question of why Al Qaeda perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. As far as democracy goes, under President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Ukraine has banned opposition parties, canceled elections, censored independent press, regulated domestic and foreign press outlets, and enacted a citizen speech ban. Democracy, eh? Despite the confidence in their views and favorable press treatment, their version of an unprovoked invasion is patently false.

To understand what actually took place requires a thorough review of events in the years leading up to February 2022.

This column does not defend nor excuse the Russia invasion of Ukraine. It is a presentation of the pertinent facts and details to give the reader a complete understanding of what occurred. Most US news organizations are parroting the Biden Administration’s line there wasn’t any provocation. Major events rarely, if ever, occur in isolation. Oftentimes there are actions that influence momentous decisions. Those who insist Russia invaded without provocation steadfastly ignore events and precipitating factors that occurred long before February 24, 2022. This column addresses these.

First, the reader should review “Russia and the NATO Promise” (Substack, July 16, 2024) that highlights the repeated promises made by the US and NATO nations that the western alliance would not expand. These promises were made in return for Soviet (and later, Russian) support for German reunification after 1989. Soviet/Russian support regarding the status of Germany was not a courtesy offered by the US. The Potsdam Agreement of August 1, 1945 gave Britain, France, US and USSR equal say on the future of Germany. Those promises to the USSR/Russia to not expand NATO are documented with letters, State Department communiqués, meeting minutes and summit notes obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The first documented US assurance to not expand NATO was made in February 1990 by Secretary of State James Baker when he promised in a meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO boundaries would not move “one inch to the east.”

Since that first promise was made, 16 nations have joined NATO. All 16 of those countries moved the NATO boundary east. Not surprisingly, the repeated expansion of NATO since 1999 fuels Russian distrust of the alliance and devalues US promises. Despite ample documented evidence, NATO still falsely claims promises to not expand NATO were never made.

This following point is very important to understand in the context of west European actions. There were 16 NATO nations in 1990 when the Berlin Wall fell. There are 32 NATO nations today. The US is not one among 32 equal passengers riding on the NATO bus. The US drives the NATO bus. Aside from rare exceptions, the US dictates NATO policy. That was true in the 1980s when this author worked with NATO and it is true today.

In the last 25 years, sixteen nations have joined NATO. They are Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were the first three to join in March 1999.

Ukraine has been under consideration for NATO membership since1997 when Ukraine and NATO signed the Charter on Distinctive Partnership. The CDP established military ties between Ukraine and the alliance and represented a first-step toward membership.

Progress toward membership was delayed in the early aughts as the US was preoccupied with the 9/11 attacks and military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. US-Ukraine relations briefly soured in 2002 after it was learned Ukraine sold sophisticated air dense technology to Iraq in violation of UN sanctions and when the US was considering military operations against Saddam Hussein.

In the first decade after the USSR collapsed the Russians solicited NATO membership, and also explored the creation of a larger European organization to join. President Boris Yeltsin (1991-1999) viewed alignment with the west as the best path toward democratic and free market reforms, and to modernize Russia. At great personal risk from powerful Russian hardliners, Yeltsin openly advocated Russia partnering with the west. Bill Clinton repeatedly suggested to Yeltsin that NATO membership was in the offing, but privately worked to isolate Russia to exclude it from post-Cold War Europe.

Clinton’s policies to subvert Russian integration with the west were continued under George Bush. Bush’s administration was stocked with neocons who were laser-focused, without explanation, on policies that would isolate Russia from the world community. These neocons included Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, UN Ambassador John Bolton, among others.

According to historian Stephen Wertheim, “Neoconservatives [in the Bush administration] were one of the more cohesive intellectual and political groups that made a strident case for US global military dominance and, after 9/11, a series of open-ended wars.”

The Bush administration’s most aggressive taunt of Russia occurred in 2004. It was revealed the Bush administration planned to build an eastern European anti-ballistic missile system with an antenna array in the Czech Republic and missile systems based in Poland. The administration claimed the missile system was merely defensive to counter Iranian missile threats. This was a head-scratcher since Iran’s longest-range ballistic missile, the Shabab-3, could not reach beyond Turkey. Russian leaders understandably viewed the plan as a provocative measure aimed at Russia. To his credit, Barack Obama scrapped the plan in 2009 to ease tensions.

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had long been considered the most corrupt nation on the European continent. Modernization was occurring very slowly. Democracy was relatively non-existent for the first 15 years in Ukraine following independence.

No doubt these shortfalls contributed to delays in offering Ukraine immediate NATO membership. There were internal and external attempts to nudge the country toward democratic reforms. The US was involved openly (USAID and US-funded NGOs) and covertly (CIA and others) in Ukrainian politics. These efforts ultimately undermined the fledgling democratic government. The US spent more than $5 billion to move Ukraine toward the west and away from Russia.

US-directed overt and covert efforts encouraged protests in 2004 against the government. Facing several corruption scandals, President Leonid Kuchma (1994-2005) declined to run for a third term. In 2004 and today, 35-years after independence, corruption still remains a very high-priority issue for Ukrainians. Polling in 2024 found Ukrainians believe corruption (51%) poses a bigger threat to Ukraine than Russian aggression (46%).

In 2004, the US-favored politician to be the next Ukraine president was Viktor Yushchenko. His main opponent, Viktor Yanukovych, was backed by Russia. Ukraine’s president is the head of state while the prime minister is the head of government. While the US and Russia engaged in a tug-of-war to gain influence in Ukraine, polling consistently showed Ukrainians wanted to remain neutral as a bridge between east and west. For a decade, about two-thirds of polling respondents strongly opposed NATO membership. Just 20-30% favored joining the western alliance.

After he was elected president in early 2005, Yushchenko (2005-2010) launched the “Our Ukraine” political party. A key party plank was to seek full NATO membership, contradicting the will of the people. Ukrainian opposition to NATO membership began to spike when Bush and Yushchenko began aggressively courting alliance membership.

In a February 2008 classified cable addressed to the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, and the Joint Chiefs, the US ambassador to Russia William Burns warned Russia was deeply concerned over Yushchenko’s request of a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the upcoming NATO meeting. The MAP is a roadmap outlining the path toward full NATO membership.

The month prior, Yushchenko released a statement calling for Ukraine to be admitted to NATO. Joining him in the call for NATO membership was Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Parliamentary Chairman Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

According to Burns, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned “a radical new expansion of NATO [i.e., Ukraine] may bring about a serious political-military shift that will inevitably affect the security interests of Russia.”

Burns further cautioned Ukraine and Russia were bound by their 1997 Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership that included security guarantees between the two countries. Ukraine flirting with NATO membership could upset those security safeguards, he warned. Because western Ukraine was Europe-leaning and eastern Ukraine was loyal to Russia, Burns reported Ukraine membership in NATO “could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.”

Burns made it very clear that potential NATO membership for Ukraine was a volatile issue that could have serious repercussions for Ukrainians, neighboring Russia, and NATO.

Months later at that NATO council meeting in Bucharest, Romania in April 2008, Yushchenko told attendees unequivocally that Ukraine was seeking full membership in the alliance. Bush aggressively supported the request. The organization withheld offering Ukraine the requested MAP due to the very concerns outlined in Burns’ cable that it would unnecessarily antagonize Russia, and possibly destabilize Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, an invited attendee at the meeting, drew his red line. Putin warned Bush in-person that Ukraine membership in NATO was “a direct threat” to Russia and a provocation that would cause Russia to partition eastern Ukraine and Crimea from the rest of the nation. These two regions are about 60% ethnic Russian and 10% Crimean Tatars, an ethnic Turkic group indigenous to the Crimea. The Crimea had been part of greater Russia for centuries until transferred in 1954 as an autonomous republic to be administered by Ukraine. About 1 in 4 Ukrainians are ethnic Russians with most living in the east.

Ukrainian citizen opposition to NATO membership began falling in 2013, according to polling. However, results were dramatically skewed because Ukrainian pollsters began excluding participation by residents in the heavily Russian ethnic eastern Ukraine and the Crimea.

After his January 2009 inauguration, Obama received a letter of congratulations from Yushchenko. In the letter, Yushchenko emphasized his desire to join NATO. Yushchenko wrote: “We highly value the degree of support given by the United States to our strategic aim of becoming a full-fledged NATO member.” Yushchenko added: “We [are] hope[ful] the fruitful cooperation toward this goal will be … Ukraine’s full-fledged participation in the alliance.” Yushchenko absolutely wanted Ukraine to join NATO.

Although Obama remained personally silent on the topic of Ukraine NATO membership, key officials and proxies signaled the administration’s position. On February 18, 2009 Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “The [NATO-Ukraine Commission] will meet … about how do we help [Ukraine] move forward with the reform process, with entrenching democratization — in short, all of the things that are necessary in terms of eventual membership in the [NATO] Alliance.”

Gates’ comments did not fall on deaf ears. Two days later the Associated Press reported “Before a closed-door meeting with Ukrainian Defense Minister Yury Yekhanurov and ministers from the alliance’s 26 members, [NATO Secretary General Jaap] de Hoop Scheffer said NATO officials were considering ‘ways in which the alliance can continue to support its preparations for NATO membership’ for Ukraine.”

The following day, former ambassador William Burns now serving in the Obama Administration as the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs emphasized US policy was favorable toward NATO membership for Ukraine. Despite his first-hand knowledge of the angst it would cause Burns was carrying out Obama Administration policy. He said, “The United States attaches a high value to the NATO alliance. Our view is that sovereign nations have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances. That means that Ukraine and Georgia have the right to membership in NATO.”

Reacting to those and similar comments, an American bi-partisan panel of diplomats and members of Congress strongly urged Obama to pump the brakes on promoting NATO membership for Ukraine (and Georgia). On March 17, the panel issued the following statement: “We do not believe that the United States has a compelling security interest in expediting NATO membership for either Ukraine or Georgia at this time.”

In early July 2009, NATO and Ukraine signed an addenda to the 1997 Charter on Distinctive Partnership. The addenda strengthened the Ukraine-NATO military relationship. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vasyl Kyrylych said the updated document was preparing Ukraine for NATO membership.

Weeks later, Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine and met with Yushchenko in Kyiv where he announced US support for Ukraine to join NATO. By this time, Yushchenko was considered a lame duck president. He was unlikely to be reelected president in early 2010. Among the chief concerns of Ukrainian citizens was the strong push by Yushchenko and the US for Ukraine to align with the west. The public wanted to remain neutral.

In February 2010 Viktor Yanukovych (2010-2014) succeeded Yushchenko as president. The vote was a sharp rebuke to Yanukovych’s opponent, then-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Both Tymoshenko and Batkivshchyna, her political party, advocated NATO membership.

The following month, in an effort to counter US and NATO western pressure, and to remain neutral, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament) passed a law that would bar the country from joining any military alliance.

There were other cultural battles taking place in Ukraine in the spring of 2010 that created perceptions of Ukraine’s ethnic Russians as oppressed minorities. In April, the government reversed an earlier decision made by Yushchenko banning the Russian language in eastern Ukraine offices.

Following independence in 1989, Ukrainian was named the state language and Russian was a de facto second language. Four in 10 Ukrainians want Russian designated as the second official language, according to a 2004 poll. The situation is very similar to Ireland where Gaelic is the official language, but English is widely used in most government offices and in public. Yushchenko’s Russian language ban was unconstitutional, according to Article 10 of the Ukraine Constitution, which states “In Ukraine, the free development, use and protection of Russian, and other languages of national minorities of Ukraine, is guaranteed.”

The majority of residents in eastern Ukraine are ethnic Russians. About 30% of all Ukrainians claim Russian as their mother tongue. Yushchenko’s campaign to de-Russify the country was unpopular, especially in eastern Ukraine. The government also rescinded a Yushchenko executive order naming Stepan Bandera a ‘Hero of the Ukraine.’ Bandera is a divisive figure in Ukraine. He was a neo-Nazi whose militia joined the Germans during WWII, including donning German military uniforms. Bandera’s militia killed an estimated 100,000 Poles and Jews during the war and it was complicit in shipping about 1.4 million Jews to death camps during the Holocaust.

The pro-West newspaper Ukraine Weekly observed in May 2012 ongoing US efforts to admit Ukraine to NATO. The paper reported “US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has declared on more than one occasion that ‘we should continue to open NATO’s door to European countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, and help them meet NATO standards.’”

NATO was welcoming of Ukraine membership. Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen (2009-2014) announced on February 22, 2013 that Ukraine progress toward joining NATO with full membership “still stands.”

By the spring of 2013, Arseniy Yatsenyuk had the full attention of the US State Department’s Victoria Nuland. She was a neocon who worked in prominent roles in both Democratic and Republican administrations. She served as chief of staff to deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott during the Bill Clinton administration. It was Clinton and his Secretary of State Warren Christopher who were promising Russian President Yeltsin they were considering Russia for NATO membership while privately scheming to isolate the nation. Nuland then served as deputy National Security Advisor to Cheney, and later worked in the State Department for Obama. She is married to fellow neocon Robert Kagan who wrote “American hegemony is the only reliable defense against a breakdown of peace and international order.”

Yatsenyuk earned the favor of Nuland when he released a statement five years earlier calling for Ukraine to join NATO. Nuland was one of the architects of US efforts to topple democratically-elected Yanukovych, who supported Ukrainian neutrality. The US enlisted the aid of the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and Azov battalion to overthrow the government.

In a leaked telephone call between Nuland and the US ambassador to Ukraine Nuland was heard saying the US wanted Yatsenyuk to become the new prime minister. This occurred while Yanukovych was still the lawful president. To be clear, the US and not the people of Ukraine, was selecting which candidate should become the next prime minister after the government would fall months later.

It’s understandable for Russia to have been deeply alarmed after observing this sequence of events. The US orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically-elected president and his prime minister (Mykola Azarov) in a bordering state and then dictated their replacements be pro-NATO politicians. Would the US sit idly if Russia did the same in Mexico or Canada?

As violence peaked in early 2014, protesters overran the presidential residence on February 22 forcing Yanukovych to flee Kyiv for safety. Ukrainian politicians promising Ukraine would end neutrality and join NATO were poised to cease power. Days later at a February 26, 2014 press conference, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen (2009-2014) commented, “We all remember what we decided at the NATO Summit in Bucharest in 2008. We decided that Ukraine will become a member of NATO.”

This appears to be the red-line scenario Putin warned Bush about six years earlier at their face-to-face meeting at the Bucharest summit. Pro-separatist forces with Russia backing proclaimed the independent Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. Russian military seized the Crimean peninsula.

That August, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk (2014-2016), who Nuland identified as the next prime minister just months earlier, announced Ukraine would abandon neutrality and join the western alliance. He said, “The government is entering a bill to the [Verkhovna Rada] about the cancellation of Ukraine’s non-bloc status and resumption of Ukraine’s course for NATO membership.”

Two years later after pushing disfavored policies, including NATO membership, Yatsenyuk became the most unpopular elected official in Ukraine history registering a 1.2% favorability rating in polling. He resigned from office in 2016 at the request of the President Petro Poroshenko (2014-2019).

That autumn, the Obama administration publicly weighed-in on Ukraine developments. On November 20, 2014, National Security Council spokesman Mark Stroh told the press, “Any decision on potential NATO membership for Ukraine is one for NATO and Ukraine, and the United States supports the right of Ukrainians to make their own decisions.” Days later, Poroshenko urged the Verkhovna Rada to consider abandoning the country’s nonalignment status in order to allow the country to join NATO.

On December 23, the Verkhovna Rada voted to end the country’s non-aligned status inching the nation ever closer toward NATO membership. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev posted on Facebook, “In essence, an application for NATO membership will turn Ukraine into a potential military opponent for Russia.”

Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president on May 20, 2019. Days later on June 5^th, he took his first foreign trip as president when he traveled to Belgium to meet NATO officials to renew Ukraine’s interest in joining the alliance. Zelensky told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty immediately after his meetings it was his goal was to get “full-fledged membership in the EU and NATO.”

After Joe Biden was inaugurated president, Ukraine stepped up its campaign for NATO membership. On February 9, 2021,Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal met with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (2014-2024) to press Ukraine’s claims. At a post-meeting press conference Stoltenberg remarked “The more successful Ukraine is in implementing reforms, the closer Ukraine hopes to meet NATO standards, and the closer you can come to the NATO membership.”

In a June 5, 2021 hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified “We support Ukraine membership in NATO. It currently has all of the tools it needs since the Membership Action Plan was created, a number of other very important tools were developed to help countries prepare for possible NATO membership, including an annual program that Ukraine benefits from. In our estimation, Ukraine has all the tools it needs to continue to move forward in this direction.”

Between 2014-2021, the US provided Ukraine with more than $60 billion in military funding and materiel. US troops were deployed to Ukraine. Although not officially a member of NATO, Ukraine became the nation most integrated into the NATO organization. By 2021, Ukraine was as close to being a full NATO member without actually possessing a laminated “NATO membership card.”

If Russia was already deeply concerned over Ukraine joining the west’s military alliance then those worries were likely elevated when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited Kyiv on October 19, 2021. According to a Department of Defense statement, Austin visited Ukraine to follow-up on the Strategic Defense Framework signed two months earlier. “The strategic defense framework will also help Ukraine qualify for NATO membership,” according to the Pentagon statement. Before he left Kyiv, Austin warned Russia, “No third country has a veto over NATO’s membership decisions.”

On February 24, 2022, pro-Russia forces began military operations in the Donbas region of Ukraine and the Crimea.

Mark Hyman is a 35-year military veteran and an Emmy award-winning investigative journalist. Follow him on Twitter, Gettr, Parler, and Mastodon.world at @markhyman, and on Truth Social at @markhyman81.