NATO signals support to Kyiv amid Russia’s military threat
KYIV, Ukraine — Facing a building threat from Russia, Ukraine’s president sought security guarantees from NATO’S chief in a meeting Thursday and came away with a renewed commitment that his country could eventually join the military alliance despite objections from its Russian neighbors.
While the timing of the statement by the chief, Jens Stoltenberg, sent an unmistakable message of support, it did not come with the commitments of military assistance that Ukrainian officials have been pleading for to deter, or possibly defend themselves against, a Russian military incursion.
Standing next to the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Stoltenberg denounced the Russian military buildup but said nothing about providing Ukraine with the additional weaponry or troops it was seeking. He referred to a 2008 summit during which NATO members promised membership to Ukraine and Georgia.
“We stand by that decision,” he said.
Ukraine has been locked in a grinding war with Russian-backed separatists since 2014 that has cost more than 13,000 lives. Although there is no indication it would be ready to join NATO anytime soon, Russian leaders argue that the prospect alone is a threat to Moscow’s national security and have indicated they would be prepared to use force to stop it.
More than 100,000 Russian troops have been deployed to regions in the north, east and south of Ukraine, along with heavy artillery and tank units, as well as rocket forces armed with missiles capable of striking deep within Ukraine, according to Western and Ukrainian officials. Western and Ukrainian intelligence agencies predict an incursion could begin within weeks or months.
It is Russia, Zelenskyy said Thursday — through its 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and continued military support for separatists in Ukraine’s east — that has pushed the country toward NATO. The alliance has an interest in supporting Ukraine at this moment, he suggested, because should Russia attack, NATO could be drawn in whether it wants to be or not.
“NATO doesn’t owe Ukraine anything,” Zelenskyy said. “If our army is not able to hold up,” he said, it is NATO that will have to step in to contain any fallout from a Russian attack that might affect its member states.
The United States, the European Union and NATO have all said that any new Russian incursion into Ukraine would be met with extraordinary economic sanctions, including the likelihood of killing a Kremlin project, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany, which bypasses Ukraine. The U.S. also suggested that NATO would beef up its troop presence near Russia.
EU leaders met Wednesday with Zelenskyy.
There is no indication that Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided whether to begin such an attack, and there is no consensus among Western officials and analysts about why he might want to do so now. But for much of this year, Putin has been fixated on Ukraine, seemingly angered that a country so close to Russia in culture, language and geography has drifted so far from its orbit.
At the very least, according to observers, the military buildup appears to be part of an attempt to pressure NATO countries to reverse what the Kremlin sees as a plot to wrest Ukraine away.
NATO regards the notion of such a plot as absurd.
More than a dozen NATO countries have military advisers in Ukraine, including 150 from the U.S. Special Forces and National Guard. The U.S. has spent $2.5 billion in security assistance, which has included surveillance equipment, patrol boats and Javelin anti-tank systems.
But because Ukraine is not a NATO member, the alliance is under no obligation to defend it in case of attack.