As US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken arrives in Geneva on Friday for a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on the Ukraine crisis, most commentators and pundits are wondering what Russia really wants in Ukraine.
Posted at 3:00 p.m.
Last week, in an editorial, the Globe and Mail rather wondered what the West wanted in Ukraine and suggested an entirely reasonable solution to the dispute between it and Russia over the international status of the Ukrainian Republic.
The West wants an independent Ukraine, writes the newspaper. This is obvious, and even Russia agrees with this principle. But how to achieve this objective when the security interests of each other are so divergent?
In Kiev, it is believed that the only way to achieve this is to join NATO and the European Union and to present Russia with a fait accompli.
Ukraine would benefit from the security guarantees offered by Article 5 of the NATO Charter and from generous EU subsidies aimed at strengthening its economy. Anchoring in the West would be the shield by which Ukraine would ensure its freedom and its development.
Russia does not see it that way. Over the past 30 years, more than fifteen former countries in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have “fleed” the Soviet dictatorship by joining the West. Nobody wants to live in the Russian Empire, and that’s normal. At the same time, NATO has come dangerously close to its borders in the eyes of Moscow. No one can ignore its geography, and Russia has suffered too many catastrophic invasions to forget it.
The Austrian model
For Moscow, Ukraine’s swing to the West is a red line not to be crossed, hence its aggressive behavior towards Kiev, which has seen Crimea be annexed and certain Ukrainian territories in the east fall under the thumb of “separatists”. A solution must be found to the current crisis. the Globe and Mail proposes one: to negotiate for the Ukraine a status of neutral country on the model which was granted to Austria in 1955 in order to bring down the pressure which was mounting at that time between East and West.
Austria was occupied by the four victors of World War II (United States, United Kingdom, France and Soviet Union). It took about ten years to reach a compromise agreed by all: in exchange for the withdrawal of its troops, the Soviet Union received the assurance that Austria would be neutral while preserving its democratic institutions and its economic system. Westerners. Austria has since remained neutral and has no intention of becoming a member of NATO.
What is good for Austria should also be good for Ukraine. The status of a neutral country in no way excludes close relations with Westerners and even the deepening of ties with Europe and the United States. Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Ireland, the other neutral European countries, experience this status very well and have democratic institutions that are just as solid, if not more so, than several of our NATO member democracies.
A gesture from Ukraine
But for the negotiation to open on a status of neutrality, it is essential that Ukraine withdraws its application for NATO membership.
This gesture, strong, will not be easy to make. For fifteen years, all Ukrainian governments have made membership of the Atlantic Alliance one of the pillars of their foreign policy. They even succeeded in dragging almost half of the initially very reluctant Ukrainians into their wake. At the same time, they have fooled their public opinion, because while NATO has indeed adopted an open-door policy for anyone who wants to enter, the Alliance has taken particular care to multiply the obstacles on the way to the accession of Ukraine.
Instead of living in illusion, Ukraine must come back to earth. It shares a long border with Russia. The Russian army is at its doorstep. She knows full well that no NATO country will come to her rescue if Russia decides on a military intervention.
It will suffer all the devastation specific to a military conflict. The time for compromise has arrived. And NATO must stop maintaining a demagogic public rhetoric about Ukraine’s membership and help Kiev make a difficult decision.
Unfortunately, the time does not seem to be for realism in Kiev. In a column published by Le Figaro On Monday, the Ukrainian foreign minister found nothing smarter to write than to mock the French elites’ (an allusion to Emmanuel Macron) “fantasy” conceptions of Russia, while begging Paris to come to his aid . This does not bode well.