Zelensky’s fantastical “peace plan” apparently includes membership of NATO.
Russia has already made it 100% clear that Ukraine joining NATO is a red-line. They have been doing this since 2008 when George Bush pressured European NATO allies to issue an invitation to Ukraine. This was one of Putin’s main stated reasons for his military action. It is hard to see how Putin is now going to change his mind on this point. If Russia was losing maybe that would make some sense; but in reality Russia is winning.
There have been some suggestions, I don’t know how reliable, that Zelensky would settle for a ceasefire on the current lines and membership of NATO, and a huge pile of arms to deter Russia from making further inroads. Ukraine would not legally cede any territory. This is plausible – this would enable Zelensky to claim some kind of victory. But, even if this is the plan, I would be very surprised if Putin was willing to accept this. In his war speech in February 2022 Putin explained that his concern was that given that Crimea was in dispute if Ukraine joined NATO there would be a real risk of a conflict sparked by Ukrainian nationalists over Crimea, which could then lead to WWIII. So – why would he then accept any settlement that left any part of Ukraine in NATO and an outstanding territorial dispute, let alone a bigger one? I may be wrong, but I find it hard to see this happening.
Zelensky seems to be pinning his attempt to put a saving face on his loss on membership of NATO. It also seems highly (as in 99.9%) likely that had NATO responded to the Russian ultimatum in December 2021 by agreeing, formally, to withdraw the plan to put Ukraine into NATO, there would have been no war. But the US would not budge on this point. So, we can assume then, that there is and was overwhelming support in Ukraine for joining NATO? So great that as a matter of principle we (the West) had to stick with Ukraine? Let’s see;
In 2008 when George Bush pressurised the US’s European NATO allies into issuing an invite to Ukraine the Guardian reported: “In central Kiev, several hundred protesters defied a court ban and shouted anti-Nato slogans in Independence Square, the focal point of the 2004 pro-western “orange revolution” protests, which swept Yushchenko to power. A few thousand protesters were massed in the square today ahead of Bush’s arrival. For many Ukrainians, joining Nato is not a priority. Only 30% of respondents in the former Soviet state support the move.” [1] (My emphasis).
In April 2014 Gallup conducted a poll [2] in all regions of Ukraine accept occupied Crimea which included the question about joining NATO. These are the results:
East: 13.1%
South (not Crimea): 10.3%
Centre: 32.1%
North 37.7%
West 53.2%
A second source for 2014 gives an overall figure of 34%. The same source gives a figure of 54% in November 2021 – just before the current war but after 7 years of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. (Which could have been ended at any time had Kiev been able to overrule their own fascist paramilitaries and impose the Minsk agreement they had signed up to). The source is the International Republican Institute. [3]
A figure based on polling by the International Republican Institute in April 2022 gives 77%. This poll excluded Donbas and Crimea. One can assume that if these areas, with their significant pro-Russian populations had been included, the overall figure would have been significantly lower.
The key point to emerge from these figures is that there was no popular push for Ukraine to join NATO. The increasing desire for NATO membership is a reaction to the war. The war is not in defence of some fine principle that Ukraine “has chosen to join NATO and we must support their sovereign choice”. In fact; the principle was nothing to do with the wishes of the Ukrainian people. The principle was the US desire to push Russia out of the ranks of the Great Powers, by inflicting a humiliation on them by putting their close, by reason of geography and history, neighbour Ukraine into NATO against their wishes. For this aim, we have been willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of Ukrainians.
When Obama was asked how he could explain how the project to turn Libya into a “prosperous democracy” via a NATO bombing campaign in 2011, had turned into such an abject failure, he replied, chillingly, that he didn’t regret the action. It just meant we might have to wait a generation for the results. At a logical level all that Obama was doing was setting up a criteria for success which could not fail, at least in his lifetime. Perhaps the West will try the same sophist trick this time? But the scale of the error is so huge it is a little bit difficult to see how they will be able to hide the disaster.
Notes
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/01/nato.georgia
- https://www.usagm.gov/wp-content/media/2014/06/Ukraine-slide-deck.pdf
- Quoted from Sakwa. International Republican Institute, ‘IRI Ukraine Poll Shows Support for EU/NATO Membership, Concerns over Economy and Vaccines for Covid-19’, 17 December 2021, https://www.iri.org/resource/iri-ukraine-poll-shows-support-eunato-membership-concerns-over-economy-and-vaccines-covid 54% wanted to join NATO
- https://www.iri.org/news/iri-ukraine-poll-strong-majorities-believe-in-victory-over-russia/