Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’: What about Ukraine and NATO?

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After presenting it to Ukraine’s main allies and the two candidates for the presidency of the United States, Volodymyr Zelensky presented his victory plan to the Kyiv Parliament.

The proposal includes five points, the first being an application for NATO membership.

According to the latest available data, 84% of Ukrainians want their country to be a member of the Alliance.

More than two and a half years after Russia’s massive invasion and countless bombings, a wiped out energy system and thousands of lives sacrificed to defend the country, the level of support for NATO is not only stable, it continues to grow.

Ukrainians understand that if they were in NATO, Moscow would not have invaded the country in 2014 and then in 2022.

After the first Russian invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, five years later, in 2019, Ukraine amended its Constitution committing to membership.

Signing the amendment, former President Petro Poroshenko told parliament that Ukraine should “submit an application for EU membership and receive an action plan for NATO membership no later than 2023.”

And Ukraine did it, but under very different circumstances. In September 2022, six months after Russia’s massive invasion, Kyiv applied to join NATO after the Kremlin proclaimed it had annexed the southeast of the country, including territories that ‘he doesn’t control.

Is Ukraine now closer to NATO membership?

The answer is both yes and no. Two years after Kyiv sent its application for membership, NATO has repeatedly reiterated its position, stating that the Alliance “condemns in the strongest terms the brutal and unprovoked war of aggression waged by Russia against Ukraine, which is an independent, peaceful and democratic country and a close partner of NATO.”

“NATO and its allies continue to provide unprecedented support to Ukraine, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defense,” the Alliance said.

NATO has also repeatedly mentioned its “open door” policy towards Ukraine, but has not gone further.

The “open door” policy does not only apply to Ukraine. It is based on Article 10 of the Washington Treaty, which states that membership is open to any “European State able to promote the principles of this Treaty and contribute to the security of the North Atlantic region.” .

But even if NATO’s doors are open as the Alliance claims, Ukraine has not been able to get through them.

The Ukraine-NATO conundrum

NATO said Ukraine would join its ranks and that its path to the alliance was irreversible. But she said Kyiv could not join while it was at war and refused to set a deadline for membership. For its part, Kyiv insists that Ukraine needs NATO to end the war.

Critics say Ukraine’s military standards do not match those of the Alliance and that the Eastern European country still has a long way to go. But others argue that Ukraine has already proven that it has one of the most powerful armies in Europe, which no longer means that Ukraine’s membership in NATO should be considered a “misalliance” – an inappropriate marriage.

Faced with the accession puzzle, an idea has been widely circulating in the media for several weeks: the West German model. This model consists of admitting into NATO only those parts of the country over which Kyiv exercises full control.

Former Alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said there could be ways to make this possible, such as the security guarantees the United States provides to Japan, which do not cover the Kuril Islands.

Japan has claimed four of the islands in the archipelago, which are controlled by Russia after being seized by the Soviet Union in 1945.

“When there is a will, there are ways to find a solution”he said in an interview with the Financial Times (FT).

Explaining how it could work, Stoltenberg told the FT,“There needs to be a line that defines where Article 5 is invoked and Ukraine must control all territory up to that border.”

This is where things get complicated.

West Germany’s NATO membership model according to kyiv

It has been almost two years since Ukraine liberated the city of Kherson and the right bank of the river on which the region lies.

Since then, the territory has been under the control of Kyiv, but at the same time it is bombarded and attacked daily with artillery and drones by the Russian army.

Where would this dividing line be located in the Kherson region? Would she be in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, which is completely free, but where Russian missile attacks are almost daily?

Would it be in Zaporizhia, the town located 50 km from the front line, which was the target of Russian bombings and which constitutes a major hub for Ukrainian forces?

Or even in Kyiv? The capital has never been under Russian control, but would the children’s hospital that was destroyed by Russian missiles just a few months ago be inside or outside that red line?

Simply put, the “Ukrainian Wall” does not exist – even Lviv, in western Ukraine, less than 100 km from Poland and the NATO border, is still being bombed by Russia.

How does Moscow see things and what is Zelensky’s dilemma regarding NATO?

Most Western supporters acknowledge that Moscow would loathe the idea of ​​a West German NATO model for Ukraine.

One of the main arguments behind Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was NATO’s alleged expansion. When speaking to the Russian public, Moscow officials often claim that Russian forces are already fighting NATO in Ukraine.

But Moscow had little to say when Finland and Sweden simultaneously submitted their official letters of application to NATO in May 2022, three months after Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine.

Kyiv’s possible aspirations will not go unnoticed in the same way, and Moscow would indeed loathe the idea of ​​a West German NATO model for Ukraine. The situation is all the more delicate because most Ukrainians would also hate it.

Not only would this idea be a difficult sell to current NATO members, who would be sure to challenge NATO’s borders in Ukraine, but it would also be almost impossible for the Ukrainians to implement.

First of all, due to legal limitations.

According to the first vice-speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, Oleksandr Korniienko, the Constitution should be amended, which is not possible because it would be contrary to martial law.

Declared on the first day of Russia’s all-out invasion of 2022, martial law restricted certain constitutional rights and freedoms. Article 157 of the Constitution states that the Constitution cannot be amended “under conditions of martial law or a state of emergency”.

The Constitutional Court, however, continued its work during the war, but in a limited manner.

In particular, granting Ukraine candidate status for EU membership prompted the administration to embark on a new series of reforms to meet the expectations of the European Commission, one of which consists of guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary.

What do Ukrainians think?

Even if the Ukrainian authorities find a way to draw a more or less clear line and change the Constitution, they will have to deal with the Ukrainian people.

The official position of the Ukrainian government, President Zelensky and the Minister of Foreign Affairs is that there will be no “no exchange of territory for a ceasefire or peace.”

Two and a half years after the start of the full-scale invasion, almost every Ukrainian family has someone on the front line; many have lost loved ones and many are waiting for family members to return from Russian captivity without knowing if they are alive and if they will return.

Every Ukrainian has suffered Russian bombings and drone attacks for more than 960 days and nights. Millions of people have left Ukraine and been internally displaced.

It will be very difficult for Zelensky to tell these people that some territories will be protected by NATO, but not others. Ukrainians believe that the price they have already paid and the sacrifice they have had to make is far too high.

They believe that they cannot accept any concessions at this stage, even though they have fiercely defended their country and the idea of ​​a free and democratic world against all odds, while the rest of the world said that it It was not a question of “if” but rather “when” Ukraine would fall to Russia.

And Zelensky knows this very well after seeing his popularity plummet. While more than 84% of Ukrainians support their country’s full membership in NATO, only 59% of the population trusts Zelensky, who is aware that the most difficult and complicated negotiations, if not impossible , which he will face will not be with NATO or the United States, but rather with the nation he represents.