US President Joe Biden said he would defend every inch of NATO territory. From Ukraine’s point of view, that must sound like mockery. Because it is exposed to aggression that violates international law, because the country is not allowed to be a member of NATO. Russian soldiers are marching into the Donbass in the east of the country. Ukraine is on its own. President Selensky announces the partial mobilization.
At the same time, the EU, USA and NATO are patting themselves on the back for their unity and determination in the Ukraine crisis. Yes, this unity is important. But the Ukrainian government is there as a beggar for more arms deliveries, calling for tougher sanctions – and yet feels pretty much alone in the crisis.
Given that Putin denied Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign state and made any diplomatic process over the Minsk Agreement impossible, the sanctions seem pretty paltry. They are only meant as a warning shot.
The G7 countries and the EU are holding back the really painful punitive measures such as export bans on technology goods or sanctions against the country’s two major banks. With the next step, one is prepared for Moscow’s next step, said Biden and at the same time warned of an upcoming large-scale invasion.
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Yes, it is strategically smart to use sanctions in stages. For someone in Lviv, Kiev or Kharkiv, that must still come across as cynical. A state of emergency had just been declared across the country.
There is no talk of security guarantees from the USA or Great Britain
A few days ago, Ukrainian President Zelensky called for the security guarantees promised to Ukraine in 1994 when the United States and Great Britain signed the Budapest Memorandum. Security guarantees against threats to territorial integrity and political independence. But none of this has remained.
In 2008, a NATO summit rejected Ukraine’s application for membership. And already there is a discussion in Germany that it would be practical if the country remained a candidate for membership in the long term, but nothing more. Ukraine needs a realistic prospect of joining NATO and the EU. Otherwise the country will remain stuck in no man’s land – just as Moscow and Beijing would like it to be.
>> Read the current developments in the Ukraine conflict in our news blog
The West was delighted when the Ukrainian people overthrew their government with the Euromaidan protests in 2013 and spoke out in favor of western integration. He transferred a lot of money and delivered weapons. And yet Ukraine feels like a protective shield from the West to the East, as a buffer state.
The Ukraine crisis triggered by Russia is about more, it is about Europe. About the future security order, about the defense of democratic values that we have probably taken for granted for decades. But the Ukraine crisis is primarily about Ukraine. And even after the first warning shot sanctions by the G7 states and the EU, it is still pretty much alone in essence.
More: “Putin has no interest in dialogue” – the US ambassador to NATO in an interview.