Ukraine, NATO pose diplomatic challenges
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden said this week the U.S. would take a more direct role in diplomacy to address Vladimir Putin’s concerns over Ukraine and Europe, part of a broader effort to dissuade the Russian leader from a destabilizing invasion of Ukraine.
But any negotiations to peacefully resolve Europe’s tangled East-West rivalries will present minefields for the U.S. president.
Administration officials have suggested that the U.S. will press Ukraine to formally cede a measure of autonomy to eastern Ukrainian lands now controlled by Russia-backed separatists who rose up against Kyiv in 2014. An undefined “special status” for those areas was laid out in an ambiguous peace deal in 2015, but it has never taken hold.
Biden also will have to finesse Ukraine’s desire to join NATO. The U.S. and NATO reject Putin’s demands that they guarantee Ukraine won’t be admitted to the Western military alliance.
But senior State Department officials have told Ukraine that NATO membership is unlikely to be approved in the next decade, according to a person familiar with those private talks who spoke on condition of anonymity.
For Biden, the challenge will be encouraging Kyiv to accept some of the facts on the ground in eastern Ukraine, without appearing to cave to Putin – a perception that could embolden the Russian leader and unleash a fresh line of condemnations by Republicans.
Ukraine may be asked “can you make some step forward on these areas,” said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. That could include measures such as allowing the Russia-allied Donbas region to control its own health care, police and schools, he said.
“But I don’t see Washington pushing the Ukrainians to take steps that would compromise their sovereignty or the ability of the national government when it came to making decisions,” Pifer said.
Biden made his offers of American diplomacy as part of a two-hour online session with Putin on Tuesday. Biden offered U.S. participation in negotiation efforts alongside Europeans, not just to settle the conflict in eastern Ukraine but to address Putin’s larger strategic objections to NATO expanding membership and building military capacity ever closer to Russia’s borders.
Ukraine, which has deep cultural and historic ties with Russia, has in recent years sought closer integration with the West and membership in NATO. The alliance has held out the promise of membership but Ukraine was a long way from joining.
Since 2014, however, when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and threw its weight behind the armed separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas region, the United States and other NATO members have been helping Ukraine build up defenses.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan stressed at a White House briefing after Biden’s call with Putin that “there was the delivery of defensive assistance to Ukraine just very recently, and that will continue.”
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Wednesday the last items in the administration’s latest $60 million package of security assistance to Ukraine are arriving there this week and consist mainly of small arms and ammunition.
The call between Biden and Putin took place as tensions grew over the threat of Russian forces again rolling into Ukraine. Putin denies any such intention and charges that it is NATO strengthening its hold in former Soviet republics that is threatening Russia.
U.S. intelligence reports last week said Russia had moved 70,000 troops to Ukraine’s borders as it builds toward a possible invasion early next year.
If Russia were to invade, the Biden administration has made clear the country would face the toughest U.S. sanctions yet.