Ukraine’s defence minister has raised the stakes before the next Nato summit, saying he expects a guarantee that his country will be invited to join the military alliance at the conclusion of the war with Russia, describing membership as non-negotiable.
Before the 33rd meeting of the alliance’s leaders taking place in a fortnight in Vilnius, Oleksii Reznikov said Kyiv recognised that accession to Nato was not possible while the conflict continued, but insisted hard pledges for the future would need to be made.
The Ukrainian government is lobbying hard behind the scenes for a bespoke route to joining Nato, jettisoning the normal membership action plan (Map) that leaves accession at risk of a last-minute veto by any of the member states.
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, echoed his defence minister’s remarks on Wednesday, telling a press conference: “We understand that we cannot be a member of Nato during the war, but we need to be sure that after the war we will be. That is the signal we want to get – that after the war, Ukraine will be a member of Nato.
“We would want a third signal at the Nato summit that Ukraine will get security guarantees – not instead of Nato, but for the time until we are in the alliance.”
In 2008, before a Nato summit in Bucharest, Germany’s then chancellor, Angela Merkel, vetoed Ukraine being put on a membership action plan despite lobbying from the US government for an open-door policy for former Soviet republics.
Merkel claimed that the continued debate within Ukraine over Nato membership and Russia’s “legitimate security concerns” meant it was not the right time for the country to begin the process of joining the alliance.
Reznikov told the Guardian that no such error should be repeated when the 31 Nato members gather on 11 July in Lithuania’s capital and that hard assurances should be granted.
He said: “In Vilnius, the heads of state and government of Nato member countries will have an opportunity to correct the mistake of Bucharest 2008 and demonstrate responsible leadership, meeting our expectations. This will show Russia that its influence must end at its borders, and further aggression will only accelerate the collapse of the terrorist state.
“We are realists and do not demand the impossible. This is why our expectations from the Vilnius Nato summit are very realistic: to receive a guarantee of an invitation to join Nato after Ukraine’s victory in the war. We are ready to sign the accession protocol immediately to start the ratification and final accession procedure.”
On Wednesday, Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, indicated her government’s support for Ukraine’s demands of a guarantee.
She said: “What we need now is to define a practical path to meet this goal. And we need to send a strong message of hope to the Ukrainian soldiers in trenches that with Nato membership on the horizon, they are fighting their last war with Russia.”
But concerns have been raised in the US and Germany that granting early Nato membership to Ukraine could provoke Russia, and could change the alliance’s decision-making structure.
At a recent alliance meeting, France’s foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, did not sound effusive about ditching the usual Map process, saying it might “perhaps” be unnecessary, although her British counterpart, James Cleverly, gave London’s firm backing.
Finland, which did not need to go through the Map process, became Nato’s newest member when it joined on 4 April, and Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sweden are now candidate countries.
Turkey and Hungary have so far blocked Sweden’s membership, an example of the lack of assurance that any prospective member can face as they go through the process of accession.
Reznikov said it was in Nato’s interests to fortify its eastern flank given that Russia would remain a threat for the foreseeable future, including to Hungary, whose prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has been criticised by Kyiv for pandering to Moscow.
He said: “The three key prerequisites for being a member of the Nato alliance are interoperability with Nato forces, a transparent procurement system and civilian control of the military. By now Ukraine has successfully implemented all three of these prerequisites.
“In view of Russia’s aggressive stance, which is not going to change anytime soon, it is in the interest of Nato to enhance and fortify its eastern flank. Today, Ukraine is already serving as a protective shield for Nato’s eastern European members. If this shield cracks, the next victims of Russian aggression could be the Baltic states, Poland, Hungary or Slovakia.
“I have no doubt therefore that it is in Nato’s best interest that Ukraine’s combat experience (with the use of Nato standard weapons systems against the Russian army) is made fully available to Nato countries. To achieve this Ukraine must become a full-fledged member of Nato.”
Reznikov said there was no credibility in the previous claims, made by Merkel and others, that membership should not be granted owing to an internal debate in Ukraine over its future relationship with the western alliance.
He said Ukrainians were keenly aware of the weak position they had been left in by the Budapest memorandum of 1994, under which the country gave up its nuclear arsenal in return for commitments from the US, Russia and Britain “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”.
Reznikov said: “Importantly, today the support of Ukrainian people for our Nato membership is at a historically unprecedented level – a record high 83%. Not least because since 2014 we have seen first-hand the devastating impact of the failure of the Budapest memorandum.
“This is why Nato membership is perceived by the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians as the only possible efficient form of security guarantees for a peaceful future. And this is exactly why Ukraine’s membership in the Nato alliance, just as our territorial integrity, are non-negotiable.”
