Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy apparently suffered yet another disappointment today, as his fallback position—allowing Russian forces to remain in place temporarily as long as NATO stepped in to guarantee the areas under Kiev’s control—seems to have gone up in smoke at the NATO Foreign Minister meeting in Brussels. Zelenskyy had floated the idea of Ukraine joining NATO with Article 5 only partly in force. Then on Nov. 28, the Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called on NATO: “I urge you to approve the decision to invite Ukraine to join the Alliance as one of the outcomes of the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting on 3-4 December 2024.”
As late as yesterday, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an official position on possible security guarantees that could be considered as a deterrent against Russian aggression. The document emphasized that Kiev rejects any formats other than NATO membership. However, today Sybiha walked that official position back, on the sidelines of today’s NATO ministerial meeting, clearly reflecting the rejection of Kiev’s position. He reinterpreted the current bilateral security agreements, saying that, while full NATO membership is the only acceptable format for security guarantees, the existing security agreements can be accepted for now. He explained that the present agreements are “not an alternative” to NATO membership, but actually “a pathway to membership—both a tool and a mechanism to strengthen support for Ukraine now and on our path to NATO.” He explicitly referenced yesterday’s Foreign Ministry statement, saying that it officially declared any security guarantees that act as substitutes for NATO membership are unacceptable, and added that the present security agreements do not fall into that category.
