Ukraine will not join NATO anytime soon. But United States, United Kingdom, France and, perhaps, Germany, they are ready to offer “security guarantees†, that is to say substantial military aid as well, to guarantee their independence and territorial integrity.
The new hypothesis, at the center of the comparison between Washington and European capitalsoverlaps a context in full swing. Yesterday it became known, among other things, that the director of the CIA, William Burns, met the leaders of the Chinese secret services in May, during a confidential mission in Beijing.
But let’s start with the claims of Volodymyr Zelensky: Goal of the Ukrainian counter-offensive is to reconquer all Russian-occupied territory, including Crimea and those regions of Donbassannexed by Vladimir Putin in 2014. For weeks now, the Ukrainian president has been repeating this concept at every summit he is invited to or in bilateral meetings with leaders from all over the world. But to be certain of victory, adds Zelensky, more ammunition, other vehicles and F-16 fighter jets are needed.
The United States continues to ensure military support and full political coverage for the government in Kiev. There official line of the Americans and NATO is officially unchanged: to step up the supply of weapons, so that the Ukrainian army can push Putin’s army back as far as possible. Yes, but how far? And above all, until when? US President Joe Biden’s response has been the same since the beginning of the war: it’s up to the Ukrainians and only them to decide where and when to stop. On this point, all NATO partners are now in agreement.
But in informal conversations, other possibilities also emerge. To begin with it is clear that diplomatic attempts have multiplied in recent weeks. The exploration of the Chinese, which apparently has not yielded results, has been joined by that of the Vatican, promoted directly by the Pope. Then, here and there, traces of possible initiatives emerge: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is certainly back in the field , Brazil, some African states, India are on the move. Zelensky studies every movement; while US Secretary of State Antony Blinken observes with skepticism.
The US government, on the other hand, seems interested in another scenario. Even in Washington, as well as in the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Paris, Rome or Berlin, few believe that Zelensky’s soldiers will really be able to hoist the Ukrainian flag again in Crimea or throughout Donbass. Indeed, there is a concrete risk that the long-awaited military revenge will end up in a semi-fiasco. The Russians could hold the front or retreat slightly. Somehow Zelensky alludes to this danger when he insistently asks to bring Ukraine into the Atlantic Alliance as soon as possible. Operation impossible in the short term, if only because the Treaty prohibits the entry into the transatlantic club of nations involved in a conflict. Americans and Europeans, however, are studying a new formula: put on the table of a future negotiation “security guarantees” to protect the independence of Ukraine. In concrete terms, it means that a certain number of countries would undertake to intervene militarily in the event of new aggression by Russia. Not only that: Western partners would continue to send bombs to Ukraine even in peacetime, turning it into one practically impregnable fortress. The most immediate reference is Israel, armored thanks in part to US weapons.
The most explicit, so far, has been Blinken himself who, again yesterday from Helsinki, has proposed an ever greater integration of the Ukrainian army with NATO standards. But the real change of pace is that of the Europeans. On the eve of the Russian attack, French President Emmanuel Macron proposed giving Kiev the status of “permanent neutrality”, indicating the Austrian model. Today, even Macron is convinced that “there can be no lasting peace without credible guarantees for Ukraine”. Lo Blinken-Macron diagram it is shared by virtually the entire Atlantic Alliance. With the probable exception of Turkey, while Germany’s attitude is not clear. There is a distant precedent. In 1994, with the «Budapest Memorandum», Kiev delivered the nuclear warheads to Moscow and in exchange obtained from Russia, USA and UK the commitment to guarantee its territorial integrity. That protocol was violated by Putin in 2014 and 2022. This is why this time the Ukrainians could get the promise of being able to count on a defensive shield similar to that of a NATO partner.