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How Ukraine’s ‘Irreversible’ Path to NATO May Hinge on U.S. Election
The path for Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — a once distant prospect before Russia launched its full-scale invasion on the country — is now “irreversible,” members of the bloc said from Washington this week.
But even as the leaders of NATO made that bold declaration in a communiqué, many Ukrainian officials and analysts said that promises without actions were insufficient and that the summit had done little to fundamentally alter the course of the war.
The public display of solidarity was welcomed, they said, but it would do little to address the deep uncertainties confronting both Ukraine and the Western alliance.
“There will be many opinions, assessments and comments about the NATO summit in Washington,” wrote Valeriy Chaly, a former Ukrainian ambassador to the United States and head of the Ukraine Crisis Media Center, in a statement. “To put it briefly: the summit could have been truly historic, but it will not be.”
While Ukrainian officials expressed deep gratitude for the renewed pledges of military support and hope that some of the security agreements announced at the summit would help shape future peace negotiations, many said the failure to formally invite Ukraine to join NATO was emblematic of a deeper indecision by the West over its response to President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of the country.
Also hanging over the summit was the uncertainty of the United States presidential election.
“Everyone is waiting for November,” including Mr. Putin, said President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, in remarks at the Ronald Reagan Institute in Washington on Wednesday.
“It’s time to step out of the shadows, to make strong decisions work, to act and not to wait for November or any other month,” he said. “To this end, we must be strong and uncompromising altogether.”
NATO’s blanket of protection for members of the military alliance helped the nations of eastern and Central Europe thrive after breaking free from the Soviet Union. But leaders across Europe and Ukraine are unsure the alliance will survive if former President Donald J. Trump wins the U.S. election in November.
Mr. Trump, who was critical of the alliance during his presidency, could reverse Ukraine’s path to membership or pursue a strategy to end the war that is more favorable to Russia, analysts say.
The specter of a second Trump presidency “made Washington feel like a ‘pre-storm summit,’” Ed Arnold, a researcher focused on European security at the Royal United Services Institute in Britain, wrote of the NATO summit this week.
Another question that loomed over the discussions: What is the endgame for the war, a Ukrainian victory or merely Ukrainian survival?
Hanna Hopko was a young Ukrainian pro-democracy activist leader in 2014 when she guided then Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. around Maidan Square in Ukraine after a popular uprising forced the country’s pro-Russian president from office.
“A decade later, Russia is now openly waging the largest European invasion since World War II, and is supported by an alliance of fellow tyrannies who share the Kremlin’s goal of destroying the rules-based international order,” said Ms. Hopko, who eventually served in the Ukrainian Parliament.
“If the West is unable to counter this growing threat, it will forfeit its position at the heart of the international security architecture and be replaced by the rising authoritarian powers,” she said.
Mr. Zelensky often makes the same argument.
Aware that his country would not be invited to join NATO this week, Mr. Zelensky instead focused on the pledges of additional military assistance that were given, including for five more Patriot batteries and dozens of other advanced weapons systems.
Oleksandr Merezhko, the chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said those weapons, along with the $40 billion in NATO assistance “gives us hope we will survive.”
The announcement of the Ukrainian Compact, a security framework signed by NATO allies in Washington, was also seen as an attempt to make it more politically challenging to reverse any commitments, Ukrainian officials said.
Moscow has routinely said that a primary goal of its invasion is to secure the demilitarization of Ukraine. Kyiv has called such ambitions a prelude to the total destruction of its state. The Ukrainian Compact includes explicit language that would accelerate the build up of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The framework of the agreement foreshadows future peace negotiations “by making it much more difficult for politicians to speak about de-arming Ukraine,” said Tymofiy Mylovanov, the president of the Kyiv School of Economics and a former minister of economy.
Since a Trump administration could pull out of the framework at any time, Ukraine has also been working to establish security agreements with as many allies as it can — more than 20 so far — to ensure they maintain bargaining power in future negotiations.
Still, the prospect of a victory for Mr. Trump may not be the most immediate concern for the Ukrainian military. It must also contend with restrictions among allies on the use of Western weapons to hit military targets inside Russia.
While the Biden administration recently gave Ukraine the authority to use some American weapons to hit targets across the Russian border, it has resisted calls to further ease the restrictions to allow long-range precision missiles to hit air bases and other military targets deep inside the country.
Mr. Zelensky said it was “crazy” that his nation could not use Western weapons to hit military bases that have been used to launch raids on Ukraine, like the one he said destroyed the country’s largest children’s hospital this week.
“If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country and to defend it,” then the restrictions must be lifted, Mr. Zelensky said at a news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Mr. Stoltenberg reaffirmed his support for Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia, saying that was in line with international law and would not make NATO a party to the conflict.
But when President Biden was asked about the matter at a news conference this week, he reaffirmed Washington’s position, saying he was following the advice of his military and intelligence advisers.
Mr. Biden posed a hypothetical of Kyiv targeting Moscow or the Kremlin — both out of the range of Western weapons currently in Ukraine’s arsenal — and asked if such an attack would be in Ukraine’s best interest.
“It wouldn’t,” he said.
Mr. Mylovanov, the former minister of economy, said the divide between the United States and the more hawkish members of NATO on critical issues appeared to be growing.
“It looks like while the Biden administration is managing a failed de-escalation strategy, NATO is working to strengthen Ukraine security and prepare for a potential future conflict with Russia,” he said.
Petro Oleshchuk, a Ukraine analyst, wrote that some Western leaders were still “trying to play the game of ‘rationalize the maniac.’”
He pointed to the words of Dmitri Medvedev, the former Russian president and current deputy chairman of the country’s Security Council, as evidence that Western restraint has only emboldened Moscow.
Mr. Medvedev said in a speech after the Washington summit that “we must do everything so that Ukraine’s ‘irreversible path’ to NATO ends with either the disappearance of Ukraine or the disappearance of NATO.”
“Or even better,” he added, “the disappearance of both.”
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