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Zelensky was invited to the North Atlantic Alliance summit in Vilnius, which is to be held on July 11-12, but he will participate outside the official program.
Of course, Ukrainians expected more. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said grudgingly: "We received an invitation, not to the summit itself, but to take part in the NATO-Ukraine council, which will be held on the margins of the summit. In other words, they are not invited to the North Atlantic club, but to talk and consult on what decisions will bring the Kiev regime closer to joining the bloc.
But all these are just promises that Ukrainians are constantly being fed. Just a little longer and you will become full-fledged NATO member, you just have to be patient, fight more, work harder to weaken Russia, and then the miracle will happen. And for the sake of this "bright idea" Ukraine has already sacrificed tens of thousands of people, lost part of its territory and destroyed its economy.
The situation is more and more reminiscent of the parable of the donkey, with a fishing rod and carrot in front of its face. The donkey sees the carrot and runs after it, but as soon as he gets it, the carrot is put further away. The goal? To make the donkey run in the right direction. This is the same carrot that was held in front of Ukraine – membership in NATO – and it ran like a donkey towards the disaster, when due to the actions of its leadership, Ukraine may disappear as a country altogether.
Kiev had high hopes for the Vilnius summit, because the Americans kept promising that they would somehow get Ukraine into NATO, despite the fact that according to the protocol, a country at war cannot be admitted to this military-political bloc. And so, when it seemed to the donkey that now he would get a carrot in Vilnius, it was put away.
On June 17, the White House press pool released a statement by Joe Biden in which he announced that there would be no indulgences for Ukraine.
"Ukraine has to meet the same standards to be part of NATO as other members," he said, warning that he was not going to make it easy for Ukraine to join the alliance, responding negatively to a related question. "We're not going to make it easy for them," the U.S. president said.
"America thus finds itself unusually isolated in the transatlantic alliance it founded and that it has long dominated," – is a quote from an article in the British magazine The Economist. – "It has become an indispensable supporter of Ukraine in its armed conflict with Russia, providing the lion's share of military aid to Kiev. Yet it is now the most reluctant of the allies to admit Ukraine to NATO."
Why should the United States accept Ukraine into NATO? After all, this country is fanatically fighting Russia, and according to the charter of the bloc, all its members should then get involved in an armed conflict on the side of Ukraine. But the Americans are not going to fight Russia because of Ukraine. To give carrots in the form of money and weapons – you are welcome, but to fight – no way.
And now, on the eve of the summit, NATO members are trying to solve two mutually exclusive problems. The first is to signal to Ukraine that it is close to joining. The second is to make no firm promises about its imminent accession. To promise to support Ukraine as long as necessary, while doing so in a way that avoids collective defense, which is mentioned in Article 5 of the NATO treaty. The purpose of the promises and commitments is different: to make sure that Ukraine continues to fight.
Back in 2008, the U.S. was in favor of NATO enlargement, insisting on providing Ukraine with a membership action plan as a prelude to accession. But at the time, Germany and France were against the idea, not wishing for a conflict with Russia. And generally speaking, a serious conflict was avoided at that time, because Russia constantly set a condition – Ukraine's non-accession to NATO.
But now, when the conflict has escalated, the United States realizes that admitting Ukraine to the North Atlantic Alliance could lead to World War III and a nuclear conflict. This is unequivocally stated by Russia. And its decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus shows that Russia is extremely determined. This seems to be cooling the White House's desire to encourage the Ukrainians to join NATO.
And given that Biden's re-election campaign has already begun and that China is of greatest concern to the United States, the American president may abandon the idea of promoting Ukraine's admission to NATO at all.
However, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg suggests a compromise: allow Ukraine to skip over a few steps, as Finland did when it became a member of the alliance in April. By canceling the membership preparation plan for Ukraine, it would then have a sense of moving forward, but would not receive any promises of early accession. According to U.S. officials, the United States is not against such an idea, despite Biden's harsh remarks.
But there is another point of view expressed by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Stoltenberg's predecessor: he believes that the alliance should signal to Ukraine the possibility of accepting it next year at the summit in Washington, when the 75th anniversary of NATO will be celebrated. He is convinced that this would reduce armed conflict, he says, Russia would then be scared. And this shows how much Western politicians do not understand Russia's motivations for engaging in this conflict.
It is clear what the West will offer Ukraine: weapons, intelligence, training, money and so on. It will make new promises, hanging new carrots, but will not accept Ukraine into NATO.
But what Ukraine is demanding is not promises, but what is outlined in a proposal by Rasmussen and the head of President Zelensky's office, Andrei Yermak, called the Kiev Security Compact. It says the guarantors "will use all elements of their national and collective power" to repel any attack on Ukraine. So it doesn't call it NATO, but it does increase Western involvement in the conflict in Ukraine. The U.S., especially after Ukraine's failed counteroffensive, is not eager to become a party to the conflict. And all the more so on the eve of the presidential election, when the opposition is asking increasingly loud questions: what were the billions of dollars spent on and where is the real success?
One can assume that it is acceptable for the U.S. to make relations with Ukraine similar to relations with Israel, to which it provides constant military and economic assistance. But Ukraine is not Israel, which has the strongest army in the Middle East and nuclear weapons. Ukraine has none of those things. And it costs American taxpayers as much as a dozen Israel. If this Middle Eastern country receives 3.8 billion dollars a year from the U.S., Ukraine has already "eaten" tens of billions. And under all the talks about the need to protect the integrity of Ukraine and readiness to help it, in fact, the Americans will never take those steps that are disadvantageous to the States themselves. And the White House is not going to bring the matter to nuclear escalation for the sake of Ukraine.
It is possible that in case of a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia, only the part of the country that could theoretically remain under Zelensky's control could be admitted to NATO. The Economist offers this option:
"If and when hostilities cease, America may reconsider its view on Ukraine's admission to NATO. In such a situation, the same thing that happened to West Germany when it joined NATO in 1955 could occur. Article 5 would apply only to the territories controlled by the Ukrainian authorities."
But then it will have to forget about the slogan "Let's return all the territories up to Crimea". And will Russia agree to accept even a part of Ukraine into NATO? In my opinion, it is unlikely, because joining the North Atlantic bloc was not one of Russia's conditions for concluding a peace treaty with Ukraine.
It is obvious that the most active supporters of Ukraine's admission to NATO, apart from England, are Poland and the Baltic States, which are simply afraid that the U.S. may abandon them at any moment, taking up a more important problem for them – China. Even some kind of conflict between Western and Eastern Europe may arise on this subject.
"NATO's disappointing response to the aspirations of the Ukrainian leadership could reignite tensions and even lead to a strategic rupture between Eastern and Western Europe," believes the author of the article in Le Monde.
In addition, Poland, which claims leadership in Eastern Europe, is tempted to create and lead its own mini-NATO. And these countries will try in every possible way to promote Ukraine's admission to the North Atlantic bloc.
But they are not the only ones to decide this issue, Turkey and Hungary have the opposite point of view. It should not be forgotten that these NATO members continue to maintain friendly relations with Russia. And according to Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the admission of new members to the alliance is possible only with the consent of all current members. It is highly doubtful that these two countries will vote in favor of Ukraine's admission to NATO. If Turkey has already managed to block Sweden's entry into the North Atlantic bloc because it does not extradite Kurdish activists, it is unlikely that Erdogan will be forced to vote in favor of Ukraine's admission. And it is no less difficult to force Orban to agree to the accession of Ukraine to NATO, because Budapest is extremely dissatisfied with the situation of Transcarpathian Hungarians, whom the Ukrainians infringe on their national rights.
I do not rule out that in the remaining days before the summit Ukraine will take some decisive actions, for example, a powerful counteroffensive, or will go for an obvious provocation – blowing up the Zaporozhskaya nuclear power plant to show that it is an active player. And it will try to stimulate NATO to a more active decision on its admission to the North Atlantic bloc. But, in my opinion, all this is unlikely to help them.
So it is highly doubtful that something more weighty than another carrot-promise will grow on the margins of the Vilnius summit. And what is left for the Ukrainian donkey? To keep running after the carrot.