On March 29, during the first round of negotiations between the delegations of Ukraine and the Russian Federation, Kyiv promised it would sign an international agreement regarding a new system of security guarantees. According to a member of the Ukrainian delegation, Oleksandr Chalyi, the structure of the new system for Ukraine will be entirely new, leaving the country outside NATO. In this case, Kyiv will have to revert to its neutrality status, without ever aspiring to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or seeking to become a nuclear power. Another representative of Ukraine, David Arakhamia, said he wants the members of the UN Security Council (Russia, the USA, the United Kingdom, China and France) to act as security guarantors for Ukraine, in addition to Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland and Israel. Arakhamia explained that “Ukraine wants to make its own NATO”. The Presidential Office, the Government and Parliament have started to present a new system of security guarantees to the population, one that is expected to bring the much anticipated peace, without mentioning however that these “guarantees” cannot automatically create a defensive alliance.
In this context, a number of questions arise regarding Ukraine’s diplomatic efforts. Is this a feasible scenario? Why should peace in Ukraine be attained by means of highly sophisticated diplomatic and military mechanisms? How can Russia act as guarantor of Ukraine’s security as long as it attacks Ukraine, destroys civilian infrastructure and commits war crimes?
A modernized version of the inefficient Budapest Memorandum, with Russia as guarantor of Ukraine’s security
As much as Ukrainian politicians try to present negotiations with Russia as a success of Ukrainian diplomacy, the Presidential Administration was criticized by various political experts, journalists and simple citizens for paradoxically considering Russia, a country that invaded Ukraine on February 24, as a “security guarantor”. Social media users recalled the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, whereby Kyiv was given security guarantees, but which stipulated no sanctions or legal consequences for anyone threatening its security. The international media also noted that Ukraine seems to propose a modernized and extended version of the Memorandum, a proposition no one believes to be enough to settle the Ukrainian crisis.
The Memorandum was elaborated in response to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine inherited a large part of the latter’s nuclear arsenal, virtually becoming the world’s third-largest nuclear power, with a nuclear arsenal bigger than that of the United Kingdom, France and China combined. Under this treaty, Ukraine renounced its Soviet-era nuclear weapons and accepted to transfer them to the Russian Federation. In exchange, the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia – the latter didn’t ratify the treaty after signing it – pledged to guarantee Ukraine’s security and territorial integrity. However, one of this guarantors, the Russian Federation, turned out to be the biggest threat to Ukraine’s security and territorial integrity, attacking this country as early as 2014.
Ukrainian political expert Volodymyr Fesenko argues that the system of guarantees proposed by Ukraine is rather part of a diplomatic game. He believes Ukraine’s neutrality status might freeze the conflict, which nevertheless doesn’t mean hostilities can resume at any point, after an indefinite period of time. “We have to understand that, as a security guarantor, Russia is as much a part of the conflict. It has to sign the document anyhow, and Russia’s name on the list of guarantors is meant to reinforce Russia’s legal accountability”, Volodymyr Fesenko claims, adding that despite these diplomatic shenanigans, the only security guarantor for Ukraine are its Armed Forces.
Western states are in no hurry to accept Ukraine’s proposition
Countries around the world seem to be in no hurry to become guarantors of Ukraine’s security as long as the war is still raging. Kyiv would want Western states to get involved as much as possible, but Russia was the first country to react. Its Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Belarus should be also providing security guarantees for Ukraine in the future, once Kyiv asserts its neutrality.
So far, all we got was hesitation from Turkey, Italy and Germany over their readiness to take part in such a security framework, although these countries never expressed their explicit commitment. Whereas at the end of March, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, appeared to be enthusiastic about the possibility of finding a solution for lasting peace in Ukraine, two weeks later he said that those countries that Kyiv regards to be guarantors of its security have not yet expressed an opinion. Kuleba said he met with NATO Foreign Ministers, but talks didn’t’ focus on security guarantees, he had to address this topic separately, at bilateral level. Therefore, the possibility of creating “a new NATO” for Kyiv are slim.
Western countries’ reluctant and prudent response to Ukraine’s proposition is not that hard to understand. The countries Ukraine wants to guarantee its security, the future members of a new “Ukrainian NATO”, are already members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Some analysts in Ukraine write that NATO’s involvement in an agreement that will have direct legal consequences might stir a response at the level of NATO by activating Article 5 in the NATO Treaty: “Seeking to guarantee Ukraine’s security, any NATO member states risks dragging the entire alliance in a global conflict in the future”. Still, we should mention that, under Article 5 in the NATO Treaty, an attack on any member is considered an attack on all allies. In other words, if a NATO member states gets involved in a conflict, the entire system of collective defense is not automatically engaged.
Negotiations with Russia – a smokescreen
Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, warned that the Kremlin might be using the peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia as a smokescreen allowing Russia to regroup and press the attack. “If a country is serious about negotiations, it doesn’t indiscriminately bomb civilians that day”, Liz Truss said.
A high-ranking government source told The Times that there is concern Allies might push for a swift peace, adding that a settlement should be reached only when Ukraine is in the strongest possible position.
Western states’ reluctance towards Ukraine’s diplomatic initiative reflects their unwillingness to be dragged into a regional conflict. Moreover, there is a high degree of mistrust for every document signed and every action undertaken by Russia. The West prefers to wait and to reinforce “Ukraine’s strongest position” by means of direct and indirect support.
The West’s concerns regarding Russia’s lack of any real desire to secure peace in Ukraine through diplomatic channels are for their most part justified, considering the actions of Moscow’s Armed Forces, which launched attacks during negotiation sessions, bombed numerous civilian objectives in Ukrainian towns and villages and committed war crimes. Even now, Russia is preparing a far-reaching offensive on eastern Ukraine.
Dwindling resources force Ukraine to negotiate
Kyiv is forced to try and sue for peace, even though its army had remarkable accomplishments in the field. Russia still has an army to be reckoned with, both in terms of numbers, as well as military technology. On the other hand, for all the support it gets from the West, Ukraine has limited resources that are hard to replace. Moreover, it is dealing with an increasing number of economic issues. Several factories and manufacturing plants were destroyed, and the population has grown tired of this war. Whereas for Russia negotiations might be a “smokescreen”, to be followed by new attacks, for Ukraine they represent a real possibility of freezing the conflict.
In fact, both Russia and Ukraine want to buy more time: in the case of Russia, it would allow it to regroup and come up with new ways of bypassing Western sanctions and devise new narratives in order to persuade public opinion that “the special operation” is successful, while in the case of Ukraine it would help secure security guarantees, to involve as many Western states as possible in solving the Ukrainian crisis, as well as to prepare to repel a new attack from Moscow.
Therefore, the Presidential Administration is faced with a very sensitive dilemma: it has to “sell” the framework of security guarantees to the public as a new defensive alliance in exchange for Ukraine remaining neutral; it needs to freeze the conflict in order to resupply; it needs to make certain concessions during negotiations, considering the people expect certain victory in the war against Russia and the recapture of all the territories Ukraine lost.
