WSJ: Allies look to security model to aid Ukraine in fight against Russia PHOTO

The Wall Street Journal has published an article arguing that NATO membership isn’t on the table for now, but Western allies could provide Kyiv guarantees for weapons. Caliber.Az reprints the article.

As Ukraine enters a pivotal stage in its war with Russia, US and NATO leaders are coalescing around a vision for shoring up Ukrainian defences and seeking to guarantee the country’s sovereign future. It is a security model that Western leaders, including President Biden, have compared with what Israel has now.

Over the past several months of the war, the grinding fight for Bakhmut has taken centre stage. But after the largely-obliterated Ukrainian city fell into the hands of the Russian mercenary group Wagner over the weekend, a broader challenge is coming into focus: How to transform the country into a bulwark against Russian aggression. 

An Israeli-style security agreement for Ukraine would give priority to arms transfers and advanced technology, Polish President Andrzej Duda said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. This security agreement would be linked to a process of moving toward future membership in NATO for Ukraine but stop short of actually making the North Atlantic Treaty Organization a party to any conflict with Russia, according to Western officials familiar with the talks.

“The discussions on this one are going on right now,” said Duda, who has been one of the staunchest supporters of Ukraine in its efforts to repel the Russian invasion.

Duda didn’t detail what weapons or technology might be transferred to Ukraine under the agreement, but Poland has already supplied Kyiv with Soviet MiG-29 aircraft, among other defence equipment.

And last week, Biden told his Group of Seven counterparts that the US would support training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 jets, an essential step to supplying the US-made fighters.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko warned Saturday that sending F-16s to Ukraine would escalate the conflict. “We can see that Western countries continue to stick to an escalation scenario, which carries enormous risks for them,” he said, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

With NATO membership for Kyiv possibly years away, a set of binding security arrangements would be a way of helping the Ukrainian military immediately as it gears up for an expected counteroffensive aimed at pushing Russia back from the territory it claimed after storming the country last year.

The push for a security agreement comes as the West has moved to increase its support for Kyiv, including providing tanks, high-end American and German-made air-defence systems, and increasing production of shells and ammunition needed on the front lines—all part of billions of dollars in Western military aid intended to ensure Ukraine, not Russia, determines its future.

Biden, who visited Poland in February, discussed the Israeli-model concept, Duda said. It is now gaining traction among Western allies as part of the agenda for the NATO summit in July in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital. The security agreement—based on a proposal known as the Kyiv Security Compact—is expected to be signed following the NATO summit, officials familiar with the talks said.

A US administration official said discussion of an Israeli model emerged as a way to address the core of Ukraine’s security issues, recognizing that it wouldn’t achieve NATO membership soon. But even if based loosely on Israel’s security model, the official said, the contours of Ukraine’s defence agreement remain fluid.

“We’re still discussing with Ukraine and allies and partners what the model will look like,” the US official said. 

Israel isn’t a member of NATO, and the US isn’t treaty-bound to come to the country’s aid. But for decades Israel has enjoyed a special relationship with the US as Washington’s most stalwart partner in the Middle East, and it is also the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign assistance since World War II.

US assistance to Israel is currently outlined in 10-year agreements, and the most recent one commits Washington to providing $38 billion in military aid between 2019 and 2028.

Goal of deterring Vladimir Putin

A similar arrangement for Ukraine could change the calculus of its current conflict with Russia, Western officials say.

It would aim to discourage Russian President Vladimir Putin from drawing out the war in the hopes of eroding political support for Ukraine in the US, which is headed for a presidential election next year, as well as in some European capitals, where the economic costs have been hotly debated.

“Russia needs to understand today that Ukraine has got those security guarantees and that they’re not going to lapse with time or with fatigue of the West,” said Duda, who emphasized that the proposal wouldn’t be linked to any sort of peace process or negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow.

The Kremlin said in 2021 that Ukraine joining NATO would be a red line. Ukraine didn’t become part of the alliance, but Russia still invaded the country.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has stated repeatedly that Ukraine’s goal is to retake all the land Russia has captured since 2014, including Crimea. He has dismissed the idea of a cease-fire with Russia, arguing that any pause in fighting would allow Moscow’s exhausted military to regroup and launch more attacks down the line.

US would be the prime guarantor of the arrangement

The concept for an Israeli model was first drafted in September by Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Zelensky, and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former NATO chief, according to people familiar with its origins.

“Ukraine needs ironclad and lasting security guarantees,” Yermak told the Journal in a statement. He added that such guarantees would need to remain in place until his country joins NATO.

Zelensky will attend the NATO summit in Lithuania, where the alliance is expected to set up a new body known as the Ukraine NATO Council that would serve as a gateway to future membership, several European and NATO officials said. Ukraine would have the power to summon a meeting of the council and seek assistance, which would then be provided by individual member countries, officials said.

The US would serve as the prime guarantor of the security arrangements with the participation of European NATO members, said Fabrice Pothier, a former NATO policy chief and aide to Rasmussen who helped draft the proposal and presented it to some Western governments.

Senior officials in several European capitals, including Paris and Berlin, said they agreed in principle with the plan, which would involve a series of bilateral assurances within a multilateral framework. NATO, Ukraine and other officials said they expect the parties to a security-guarantee compact to include the US, U.K., Germany and France.

Ukrainian officials have previously expressed an openness to the notion of security guarantees as a deterrent against Russian aggression. Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, said that after reclaiming its sovereign territory Ukraine should become a country with a powerful modern military able to ward off future Russian aggression.

Kyiv is emphasizing the need for concrete obligations on the part of Western countries, given its history with security assurances.

The US helped persuade Ukraine in 1994 to give up its nuclear weapons, offering it security assurances alongside the UK and Russia. Moscow violated that agreement when it annexed Crimea and moved military units into eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Pothier, the former NATO policy chief, said the success of the agreement will come down to the details.

“The compact has to be binding enough to be credible—otherwise the Russians will not take it seriously, and it’s not going to deter them and prevent another war,” he said.

Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, the Ukrainian government has pushed for a path to NATO membership. Zelensky last year submitted a formal application to the alliance, but the US and other NATO members have made clear that any membership process will take time.

“It’s quite understandable that Ukraine cannot become a member of NATO when there is war on Ukrainian territory—war which was started by Russia,” Duda said. “But it is equally clear that, thanks to this war, Ukraine is modernizing its military, moving toward NATO.”