The charm offensive has received a lukewarm response

NATO

Zelensky's dream of NATO remains a dream

Wolfgang Hansson

This is a commenting text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.

Published 19.14
 

Quick version

• President Zelensky's diplomatic efforts have not resulted in any promises of swift NATO membership or the go-ahead to use Western weapons against targets deep inside Russia.
• NATO wants to help Ukraine without being directly drawn into the war, which prevents Ukraine from using NATO weapons against Russian targets. This caution is due to fears of escalation and a possible nuclear attack by Russia.
• Zelensky's five-point plan aims to strengthen Ukraine's position through diplomacy while still having some strategic advantages. However, the situation is becoming increasingly desperate with Russian advances and uncertainty surrounding the upcoming US presidential election.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte met in Brussels last week. Photo: Virginia Mayo/AP

The results of President Volodymyr Zelenskyi's major diplomatic offensive recently are meager.

He has neither received any promises about soon membership in NATO nor the go-ahead to use Western weapons against targets deep inside Russia.

Some signs of Zelensky's increasing desperation and the precarious situation Ukraine is in.

One of the items in the five-point plan for peace that Zelenskyi has been touting and promoting is an immediate invitation to become a NATO member. He recently tried to sell it to both Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in the United States. And last week to EU leaders at the summit in Brussels. As well as to the new NATO chief Mark Rutte.

- Our soldiers are fighting at the front with weapons from NATO countries, Zelenskyy stated when he stood side by side with Rutte at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.

- It would be wrong to leave Ukraine out of the alliance when in practice we are already part of NATO.

But the response from the US and Europe has been rather lukewarm.

Zelenskyi's dream of NATO membership in the near future is and will remain just that.

NATO is simply not ready to admit a country at war with Russia. Especially not as Russia. currently occupies 20 percent of Ukraine's territory.

In practice, membership today would mean an obligation for NATO to intervene more directly on Ukraine's side in the war. As a member, Ukraine would be subject to the musketeer clause. Whoever says that an attack on a NATO country is an attack on the whole of NATO.

NATO's attitude has always been to help Ukraine as much as possible, but without NATO being drawn directly into the war. A development that President Joe Biden has repeatedly warned could be the beginning of a third world war.

For the same reason, the US, Germany and the UK have once again refused to give Ukraine the go-ahead to use their weapons to fire at military targets deep inside Russia.

NATO constantly repeats that Ukraine has the right to defend itself even by attacking Russian territory. But obviously not too far into Russia using NATO weapons.

It is about Russian airbases and ammunition depots that are used for attacks on schools, residential buildings and power plants in Ukraine.

But the major powers in NATO still do not want to let Ukraine attack Russian targets with NATO weapons for fear that it will cross Putin's red lines and, in the worst case, trigger a Russian attack with tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

This means that Ukraine must continue to fight with its hands partly tied behind its back. You have the capacity to strike deep inside Russia, but you must not use it.

It follows a familiar pattern where the West constantly hesitates to step up its support but eventually does. But this time they seem to have reached a limit.

It unfortunately coincides with some Russian successes on the battlefield. Ukraine was recently forced to withdraw from the town of Vuhledar, which it had fought hard to hold since the beginning of the war. Even in the strategically important Pokrovsk, the Ukrainian forces are retreating bit by bit.

Vladimir Putin's Russia is eating its way bit by bit further into Ukraine. Photo: Evgenia Novozhenina/AP.

It is not that the Russian troops are rushing forward, but bit by bit they are eating their way further and further into eastern Ukraine. Soon they may be helped by tens of thousands of soldiers from North Korea.

With his five-point plan, Zelenskyy has tried to turn a difficult situation into a strategic advantage. The president realizes that the only person who benefits from a prolonged war is Putin. Therefore, he wants to negotiate with Russia while Ukraine still has some kind of trump card in the territory it occupied in Kursk inside Russia.

But new Ukrainian successes on the battlefield would require the West and NATO to be prepared to increase aid in a situation where more and more countries in the West instead hesitate about how much to support Ukraine.

Worst of all in a situation where there are only a few weeks left until the presidential election in the United States. If Trump wins, it likely means a completely new game plan. A game plan that will be in Ukraine's favor to an even lesser extent.

So despite all the beautiful talk that the West will support Ukraine as long as needed, Zelensky's situation is becoming increasingly desperate.

A new winter is at the door of an increasingly war-weary population. Despite this, the Ukrainians have a strong motivation to continue defending themselves.

The question is how strong is the motivation of NATO and the West.