While president-elect Donald Trump threatens Hamas and demands the release of Israeli hostages, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has declared a refusal to accept guarantees from NATO allies as a path to peace instead demanding full NATO membership.
It must be obvious to everyone that NATO will not seriously considering inviting Ukraine to join its military and political alliance at this time. Preventing an escalation in the conflict with Russia remains NATO’s priority and the bloc is pinning its hopes for an end to the conflict through negotiations between Presidents Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin.
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The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s statement sounded like an ultimatum, but it was not made by Zelensky who can deny responsibility for it and, if needs be, replace the Foreign Minister. As we approach Jan. 20 and Trump’s arrival in the White House, all of Ukraine’s military and political processes have switched to overdrive but, just as the fog that hangs over the country blinds us, this activity is seen as the indistinct flailing about by many parties.
Only the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s statement was clear, and it was timed to coincide with the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Dec. 3 and 4, where the ministers preferred to discuss the continuation of military aid to Ukraine, rather than its membership of their military alliance.
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Information flashed through the Ukrainian media that Germany is ready to discuss partial NATO membership of Ukraine – that is membership of part of the country, the western and central regions, while southern and eastern Ukraine remain under the control of Russia.
These military and political rumors were amplified by the unexpected visit to Ukraine by German Chancellor Olaf Scholzon Dec. 2. However, they were not discussed at the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels – at least not publicly.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, on the other hand, did mention that Ukraine's path to NATO membership requires the signing of bilateral security agreements with each member country of the military alliance – a long and problematic process. It seems extremely unlikely that such an agreement could be signed with Hungary while Viktor Orbán is the Prime Minister, or with Slovakia’s Robert Fico.
Through the fog of uncertainty, new activity is visible in Ukraine’s domestic political life. A convoy of identical, perfectly washed Mini Cooper cars drove by Kyiv City Hall – a building that has long sported a banner calling on Russia to release Ukrainian prisoners of war, especially the soldiers of the Azov Battalion captured two years ago in Mariupol. Leaning out of the cars were young men with cardboard boxes on which were written demands to release the prisoners of war.
Why did these activists choose to demonstrate in front of the Kyiv City Hall? The mayor’s office does not deal with prisoner of war, and everyone understands that Russia is responsible for delaying the process.
Most likely, what lies behind this eye-catching protest is the long-standing conflict between the capital’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko and the office of the president. The polished look of the protest indicates that it was orchestrated by PR specialists with connections to car dealerships. In addition, the rally participants clearly had no fear of being grabbed by enlistment officers, who have recently been stopping cars with male drivers or passengers with renewed vigor.
The office party season is beginning, but employees are afraid that uninvited guests from the enlistment office could gatecrash the festivities. Ukrainians are creative and always ready with non-standard solutions to challenges. Perhaps, to avoid unwanted attention, corporate events will take place at unusual venues – on the territory of a military unit, for example, or in the workshop of a munitions plant.
This year, creativity has reached new heights among Ukraine’s criminal elements. In the central Ukrainian Cherkasy region prominent representatives of the country’s criminal elite organized a get-together on the territory of a penitentiary. The meeting was attended by three inmates and several of their esteemed colleagues who were at large at the time. The director of the prison who allowed this gathering to take place inside the colony is now under arrest and awaiting trial, as are the guests.
As the end of the year approaches, the government is seeking ways to strengthen its domestic policies and has renamed the Ministry for the Integration of the Occupied Territories as the Ministry of National Unity. At its head will be Oleksiy Chernyshev, former head of the board of the national oil company Naftogaz.
“The creation of the Ministry of National Unity will contribute to the formation of a strategy on how to ensure that Ukrainians return to live and work in Ukraine,” Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.
The mass return of Ukrainian refugees will only be possible once the war ends, and we see a stable peace guaranteed by NATO’s members. Everyone understands this, including Ukrainian politicians who remember the failure of the “Budapest Memorandum” that was supposed to assure the inviolability of Ukrainian territory in exchange for Ukraine’s surrender of nuclear weapons. It was signed in Budapest exactly 30 years ago, on Dec. 5, 1994, when Russia, the United States and Great Britain promised to safeguard Ukraine.
Today, NATO is looking for new forms of “assurance” that will encourage Zelensky to sit down at the negotiation table with Putin. It is interesting that for their last joint meeting of the year, the NATO foreign ministers chose a date that practically coincides with the anniversary of one of modern history’s greatest geopolitical deceptions – the impotent Budapest Memorandum.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
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