DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Some countries at the COP28 climate talks are lying about the potential for capturing the greenhouse gases fossil fuels emit, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said.
Kerry was speaking at an event on Friday evening on the sidelines of the U.N. COP28 climate talks in Dubai, where the nations of the world are wrangling over the draft of a pledge to end fossil fuel use.
The deal has been forcefully opposed by fossil fuel-producing countries, including Saudi Arabia. Negotiators from Riyadh argue carbon pollution can be largely captured and buried using scrubbing technology that Kerry said remains largely unproven at the needed scale.
“There are people here who want to just continue business as usual. And the great facade is: ‘Oh no, we’ll be able to capture everything,’” said Kerry, his voice hoarse from a chest cold. “No scientist tells me we can capture it all. Can’t do it. Can we capture some? Yes, and by the way, I’m for it.”
Kerry said it was up to the gas industry “to show us they can capture all those emissions, to tell us whether it’s really going to be part of the future. But don’t lie to people and tell them it’s green. And don’t pretend to people that that’s the main alternative.”
Kerry said the next few days of talks, which are scheduled to end Tuesday, would be “absolutely critical. Without any question whatsoever.”
A draft text released on Friday by the United Arab Emirates government, which is hosting the conference, included several options for a deal between almost 200 countries to “phase out” fossil fuels — a phrase being pushed by small island states, the U.S. and the European Union. But it also included an option for no deal at all, which is the result many countries, including Saudi Arabia, China and Russia prefer.
“I am concerned that not everyone is engaging in a constructive manner,” German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan said in a statement shared with reporters.
Saudi negotiators have pushed for the deal to focus on the emissions that cause climate change, rather than the fuels that cause the emissions, UAE chief negotiator Hana Al Hashimi told reporters Saturday. That necessitates the use of carbon capture — but countries are divided over how much the technology can be used, versus the need to simply stamp out the use of the fuels.
The EU is arguing for the deal at COP28 to include a stipulation that carbon capture and storage (CCS) only be used for the hardest sectors to cut out the use of fossil fuels, such as the manufacture of cement.
“Make no mistake, we cannot CCS ourselves out of the problem,” said EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra at a press conference Friday, adding that carbon capture and storage was “a minor part of the solution space.”
Advocates for a fossil fuel phase-out deal believe it will scare investors away from fossil fuel projects. “One thing I know to absolute certainty,” Kerry said, “we are not going to go back to the old energy paradigm, you can absolutely bank on that. We are not going back.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.N. climate summit kicked off Thursday with a parade of wealthy nations offering big-money pledges to help poorer countries cope with the ravages of a warming world — a surprise that turns up the pressure on countries like China to open their checkbooks.
Leading the charge was the summit’s oil-rich host, the United Arab Emirates, whose $100 million (€92 million) vow seemed designed to defuse months of criticism about whether it can serve as an honest broker in talks about ending the world’s fossil fuel dependence. Its offer matched one from Germany.
The maneuver certainly turned heads — and kicked off a cascade of contributions, making for a remarkable opening day at the 28th annual COP conference. The European Union said it would give at least €225 million for the fund (including Germany’s pledge). The United Kingdom tossed in £40 million, or approximately €46 million.
Trailing far behind: the United States, at $17.5 million, or roughly €16 million.
Suddenly, it was the UAE getting the praise. EU climate envoy Wopke Hoekstra thanked the country for “leading the way for new donors.”
He added: “Thanks to the EU’s efforts, the fund is open to contributions from all parties that have the capacity to pay.”
His comment was a clear nod to the fact that the pledge transcended a decades-old divide in climate talks between “developed” and “developing” nations, particularly on financial matters. Many activists and climate-vulnerable countries have long argued that rich, industrialized countries responsible for the bulk of planet-warming emissions should take the lead on funding climate action. Even the Paris Agreement echoes this point.
Now, however, the spotlight will turn to countries like China, the world’s second-largest economy, and Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two small yet affluent countries. All three are still considered “developing countries” under the U.N. climate framework despite amassing considerable wealth in recent generations.
“We are building bridges between traditional donor countries and new, non-traditional donors,” said German Development Minister Svenja Schulze, who announced Berlin’s $100 million contribution via video link in the plenary, in a statement.
Without mentioning any country in particular, she added: “After all, many countries that were still developing countries 30 years ago can now afford shouldering their share of responsibility for global climate-related loss and damage.”
An age-old battle
Most developing countries want to maintain their existing categorization, which harkens back to an early rubric used to define which countries are rich and poor.
But developed countries like the U.S. and those in Europe are campaigning for high-polluting emerging economies to contribute funding, a push aimed at broadening the donor base as financial needs grow.
In the absence of direct bilateral aid, the U.S. is working to draw in more money from the private sector | Feng Li/Getty Images
The countries’ commitments will go into what’s known as a “loss and damage” fund in U.N. jargon. The money is intended to help compensate for the destruction wrought by extreme weather and other consequences of global warming.
Delegates from nearly 200 countries signed off on the initiative only hours into the summit, a positive sign given the issue was mired in fractious talks in the weeks before COP.
The U.S. pledge, small as it was, was still notable given that Washington has historically been reluctant to offer specific dollar amounts for the new fund. In recent weeks Biden administration officials have indicated their support for the fund but said they wanted to see it finalized before considering donations.
That said, even the $17.5 million may never come to fruition, as the White House could need sign-off from a Republican-controlled House that has been hostile to such efforts and is already stymied on other international aid decisions.
Still, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry was bullish on Thursday.
“We also expect the fund to be up and running quickly,” he said. “We expect that will help address priority gaps in the current landscape of support, and we expect it will draw from a wide variety of sources.”
In the absence of direct bilateral aid, the U.S. is working to draw in more money from the private sector and has supported the idea of funding from more innovative sources, which could include things like levies on air travel.
Behind the U.S. was Japan, which said it would give $10 million.
“While the overall signal from today’s pledges is positive, it is disappointing that the United States and Japan chipped in so little,” said Ani Dasgupta, president of the World Resources Institute. “Given the size of their economies, there is simply no excuse for their contributions to be far eclipsed by others.”
Dasgupta called the UAE pledge “particularly notable,” since it broadens the group of nations providing climate finance.
Making history
The deluge of announcements came after delegates approved the framework for the new climate disaster fund, a landmark decision that prompted a standing ovation at the summit.
“We have delivered history today,” COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber — who also heads the UAE’s state-owned oil company — told delegates, adding that this marks “the first time a decision has been adopted on Day One at any COP.”
Sultan al-Jaber heads the UAE’s state-owned oil company | Mark Felix/AFP via Getty Images
Delegations and civil society organizations broadly welcomed Thursday’s announcements and U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell said the development gave the conference “a running start.”
But some warned of a yawning gap between the initial pledges and countries’ financing needs.
“The initial funding pledges are clearly inadequate and will be a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of the need they are to address,” said Mohamed Adow, director of the nonprofit Power Shift Africa.
“In particular, the amount announced by the U.S. is embarrassing for President Biden and John Kerry,” he added. “It just shows how this must be just the start.”
As for China, “I don’t think they will pledge,” said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “But this highlights the urgency for China to consider its evolving responsibilities when it comes to finance.”
Still, the $200 million from Germany and the UAE will cover the cost of getting the fund set up under the World Bank, allowing additional pledges to flow into the fund itself.
“This day is doubly auspicious due to the immediate commencement of the capitalization process,” said Pa’olelei Luteru, a Samoan diplomat who chairs an alliance of island nations long pushing for the fund.
“This is an encouraging beginning,” he added, “but there is much work ahead of us.”
Zia Weise reported from Dubai. Sara Schonhardt reported from Washington, D.C.
A Brussels promise has exposed the yawning gap between the United States and European Union over payments to climate-ravaged countries — just ahead of a major climate summit.
The vow came Monday from Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s climate commissioner, who said the EU was “ready to announce a substantial financial contribution” for a new climate damage fund.
The pronouncement flew in the face of the more cautious U.S. approach — and will inevitably raise pressure on Washington and other wealthy governments to follow suit.
The emerging divide reflects how contentious the debate is over a fund to support countries scarred by extreme weather and other global warming harms, often referred to as “loss and damage.” Even settling on a framework for the fund faced challenges until climate negotiators reached a fragile agreement earlier this month in Abu Dhabi.
The dispute has often pitted rich, heavy-emitting countries like the U.S. and the EU against the developing countries facing the impacts of those emissions. But long-simmering differences between Brussels and Washington are now also bubbling over as the new fund takes shape — especially as calls mount for wealthy countries to pay up.
In Abu Dhabi, Germany’s lead negotiator went out of her way to clarify that even though she was speaking for a group of developed countries, “our constituency is not one single group with one single voice.”
That transatlantic divide risks complicating rich countries’ efforts to get developing nations to sign up for more ambitious climate action at the COP28 climate summit starting later this month in Dubai. Cracks in the EU-U.S. alliance will make negotiating against the likes of China and Saudi Arabia trickier, and Washington’s reluctance to pay is impeding efforts to build trust between the poorest and most vulnerable nations and those with the resources to help them.
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry told an event on Friday he was “confident” that Washington would contribute “several millions,” though it’s unclear when it could be delivered. The Biden administration has struggled to get finance for international climate efforts through Congress and tends to take a more hardline stance on climate disaster funding — for both strategic and ideological reasons.
The EU is no longer waiting around.
“We, the EU, are not only prepared to lead, but we are capable of showing leadership,” a senior EU diplomat, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the matter, told POLITICO.
Differing philosophies
The divide stems partly from a different sense of the moral responsibility borne by the U.S. and EU.
As the climate talks earlier this month concluded in Abu Dhabi, European representatives reluctantly supported the framework, while the U.S. continued to press for changes even after the meeting had ended, claiming the adopted text was “not a consensus document.”
A house destroyed by the sea on the island of Carti Sugtupu, in the Indigenous Guna Yala Comarca, Panama | Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images
A State Department official told POLITICO the U.S. “did not consider it sufficiently clear what the members were being asked to agree to, particularly on the issue of sources of funding.” The text has now been clarified, the official added, putting the U.S. in a position to welcome the negotiators’ recommendations.
“So I hope we’re going to avoid an implosion in Dubai because we now have agreed … on the way in which we can manage this fund,” Kerry said on Friday.
But the tiff over punctuation — the Americans were largely concerned about the placement of a comma they argued could indicate developed countries had a particular responsibility to pay — is another sign of the divergence between Washington and Brussels.
The EU and the U.S. are aligned on core issues: Both want a fund for vulnerable countries that doesn’t pin a unique responsibility on developed countries to provide the cash.
But Europe has been more comfortable with a document calling on wealthy nations to take the lead on money. “These distinctions can cut in both directions — if we’re taking the lead, then we’re expecting someone else to follow,” the EU diplomat said.
The EU’s more relaxed approach stands in contrast to Washington’s obsession with legally watertight language. The U.S. worries that any suggestion that rich polluting nations might have a responsibility toward countries hit by climate disasters could lead to legal obligations to pay compensation.
“As always, the European team is more flexible, and they’re the first who are ready to invest,” said Gayane Gabrielyan, Armenia’s deputy environment minister, who participated in the Abu Dhabi talks.
America’s political trump card
Cash-strapped countries argue such financial pledges are the incentive they need to make their own emissions-slashing commitments.
“You can’t ask developing countries to have a faster, greater green transformation than any developed country ever did and then on the other side say, ‘Oh, well we feel no obligation, and feel no responsibility for their climate loss and damage,’” said Avinash Persaud, climate envoy of Barbados, who participated in the talks in Abu Dhabi.
“I think the Europeans get that but our American partners don’t always appear to — or local politics trumps that,” he added.
Those politics are quite tricky for the U.S., however. President Joe Biden must get international climate finance pledges through Congress — a momentous challenge given the Republican-controlled House and a slim Democratic majority in the Senate, not to mention a potential looming government shutdown that would stall all funding bills.
Officials bring that challenge with them into climate finance negotiations, observers say.
President Joe Biden must get international climate finance pledges through Congress | Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
“They try to create funds or agreements that are going to be more palatable in Congress,” said Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA. “But historically, the results of that has been the U.S. has just consistently watered stuff down and has not been a reliable partner in joining agreements or contributing funds.”
That’s true for all kinds of climate funding, not just loss and damage. When Germany hosted a replenishment conference of the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund last month, Berlin put forward a record €2 billion, with other EU countries also contributing. The U.S. pledged nothing.
In another interview on Friday in Singapore, Kerry promised that Washington would “make a good-faith effort” when it comes to helping victims of climate disasters.
“But we need everyone to take part — it can’t be just a few countries, we need everyone to help to the degree that they can,” he said.
Leading or ceding leverage?
Some see the Europeans’ flexibility as a strategic mistake.
A former U.K. official, granted anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive diplomatic matter, said that at last year’s COP27 in Egypt, the European Commission team undermined the position of other wealthy countries by backing a climate disaster fund before developing countries had agreed to cut emissions in return.
The EU appears to have taken that message on board this year, with Hoekstra strongly implying Brussels will use climate disaster funding as a bargaining chip to obtain emission-cutting concessions.
If countries make enough pledges at COP28 to slash emissions, the new climate disaster fund “can be launched in Dubai, with the first pledges, too,” he said in a speech in Kenya last week. “Because if we don’t cut greenhouse gas emissions, no amount of money will be able to pay [for] the damages.”
But the EU is already gathering money. A senior European climate negotiator, who could only speak on condition of anonymity because of their sensitive position, said Hoekstra had been touring European capitals asking them to prepare contributions, something the Commission would not confirm but did not deny.
No official POLITICO spoke to would say on the record whether and how much their country would pay into the fund — except for Denmark’s climate minister Dan Jørgensen.
“We were the first country to pledge money last year … and we will also be ready to do that again now,” Jørgensen told POLITICO and four European newspapers last week, promising a “generous pledge.”
Asked for more details later, his office asked POLITICO not to publish the comment — implying that the minister should not have revealed Denmark’s intention to pay just yet.
Still, the EU let the cat out of the bag on Monday with its promise to pay into the fund, even as it declined to detail how much. The precise amount, a diplomat from a European country represented at the recent loss and damage talks, was the “big fat carrot” in the COP28 negotiations.
But asked if Brussels was also bringing a stick to Dubai, the diplomat conceded: “I think the Americans are the ones swinging a stick.”
Don’t expect to see F-16s in Ukrainian skies anytime soon — the allies need some time.
Following months of Ukrainian lobbying, the U.S. on Friday greenlit training for Ukrainian pilots on fourth-generation fighter aircraft, raising expectations that a fleet of F-16s would soon be on its way.
Yet as of now, some of the leading contenders to donate the American-developed warplanes — including the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark — have only committed to helping train Ukrainian pilots, expressing reluctance to make further promises.
“Let’s make sure we now make the most of training activities,” Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra told reporters in Brussels on Monday. “What the future then holds for us,” he added, “remains to be seen.”
Some, like Belgium, have even directly said they don’t have F-16s to spare.
The pattern, however, is one that has played out over and over as Western allies gradually escalate the weaponry they are shuttling to Ukraine. At first, there is hesitation. Then one of the major powers — often the U.S. — takes a first step, followed by a coalition of European nations that jump roughly together.
“This is kind of indicative of how the U.S. has provided assistance at every step of the war in Ukraine,” said Seth Jones, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
For now, no one is ready to send the first jet. That could easily change — in time.
“The delivery of F-16s will indeed make a difference … months from now,” said Ben Hodges, former commanding general of U.S. Army Europe.
Where are the jets now?
The slow decision-making is linked to both political and technical considerations. Few countries have an F-16 surplus, and the modern machines require significant training and logistics. The U.S. also has to authorize other countries to re-export the plane.
Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov, said “the Netherlands are in a position to be [the] first” country gifting fighter jets.
The Netherlands currently has 24 F-16s in use which are “operationally deployable” and “will remain in use until mid-2024,” a spokesperson for the Dutch defense ministry said. “After that, they are available for another destination, such as sale.”
Ukrainian Air force MiG-29 fighter planes take part exercises during August 2016 | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
The Netherlands also has an additional 18 F-16s “which are no longer used operationally” and “can also be given a different destination.”
Twelve of these 18 were originally slated to be transferred to a private company, but the transfer had been delayed, the spokesperson noted.
Predictably, the U.S., where the F-16 was invented, maintains its own massive fleet. Yet asked Monday if there is any chance the U.S. will provide its own planes, U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told reporters: “I don’t know. I mean, I think there’s a number of possibilities.”
The U.K., meanwhile, has been an aggressive advocate of creating a Western “coalition for jets.” But the country itself lacks any F-16s to donate.
Several other capitals have also signaled they are only willing to go as far as training. In addition to Belgium, Polish President Andrzej Duda said last week that Warsaw will not give away its more modern jets — the country maintains a fleet of 48 F-16s — after already donating Soviet-era MiG-29s.
How long will training take? Where will it happen?
Washington has indicated that while it now supports Ukraine getting access to the F-16s, the decision is designed to help Kyiv in the longer term — and won’t have an immediate impact on the battlefield.
“It will take several months at best for them to have that capability and there are a lot of details that are going to have to be sorted out,” Kendall, the air force secretary, said Monday. “It will give the Ukrainians an incremental capability that they don’t have right now. But it’s not going to be a dramatic game changer.”
For now, allies are working to get the training started.
A spokesperson for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — whose country doesn’t have F-16s — said on Monday that Berlin and Washington were in “close coordination” on the plans, but stressed that the program “takes several months or even years, depending on the previous experience of the pilots.”
The spokesperson cited Spangdahlem and Ramstein as air force bases in Germany where the U.S. has F-16s stationed, offering possible sites for practice. The spokesperson declined to comment on what specific support Berlin may provide.
Some experts have criticized the pace of decision-making.
The U.S. administration’s “continued incremental decision-making undermines so much of the good work it has already done,” Hodges, the former U.S. general, told POLITICO on Monday.
“If the administration would decide that it wants Ukraine to actually win this war, then all the excuses would go away, decisions would be made in time, and the full effect of Western support would bring about the quickest possible successful conclusion to this war,” he added.
Kendall, the U.S. air force secretary, underscored that the issue is a matter of priorities — and that there is now a shift to thinking ahead.
“We could certainly have started earlier, but there were much higher priorities and it’s seen by some as an escalatory act on our part,” he said.
How would Ukraine use F-16s? Would Russia respond?
While there were fears earlier in the conflict that providing advanced, Western fighter jets could be escalatory, officials appear to have shed those concerns — as they did earlier in the conflict on the issue of sending modern, Western tanks.
A diplomat from a European country with F-16s said Ukraine could use the planes in different ways, including mere surveillance and defense of its airspace, and commit to not launch any bombing campaigns over Russian territory.
U.S. President Joe Biden said over the weekend that he received “a flat assurance” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the jets will not be used in Russian territory. “But wherever Russian troops are within Ukraine in the area, they would be able to do that,” he said.
Alexander Grushko, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, warned that Western countries sending F-16s to Ukraine would incur “colossal risks for themselves,” according to Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass. Yet that’s a message Moscow has tossed out for each new stage of Western support — and the Kremlin is running out of ways to escalate further.
“There is not much they can do,” said Jones, the CSIS scholar. “I think it reflects that the concerns I think that a range of government officials have had about how the Russians might respond to more sophisticated weapons have just not proven to be accurate.”
The European diplomat said the U.S. could grow more comfortable with the idea of sending F-16s to Ukraine if Kyiv fails to make significant gains in its upcoming offensive, or if the West finds itself unable to supply Ukraine with other key needs and decides to compensate with jets.
Asked if it is realistic for Ukraine to get F-16s by the fall, a senior Central European defense official was upbeat, saying “I think it is.”
Weighing in on the same question, a senior diplomat from Eastern Europe quipped: “Why not?”
Jacopo Barigazzi, Hans von der Burchard, Jan Cienski and Barbara Moens contributed reporting.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin should be tried in The Hague for war crimes, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a surprise visit to the Netherlands.
“We all want to see a different Vladimir here in The Hague,” Zelenskyy said. “The one who deserves to be sentenced for these criminal actions right here, in the capital of international law.”
The Ukrainian president spoke in The Hague, where he traveled unexpectedly Thursday. He is expected to meet Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo later in the day.
In March, the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an international arrest warrant against Putin over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow has previously said it did not recognize the court’s authority, but the warrant means that the ICC’s 123 member countries are required to arrest Putin if he ever sets foot on their territory, and transfer him to The Hague.
The warrant’s existence has already caused a stir in South Africa, where the Russian president could attend the next BRICS summit in August.
Last week, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the country should leave the ICC — but his office backtracked a few hours later, stressing South Africa remained part of the court.
In spite of numerousreports that Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine — including a recent U.N. investigation which said that Russia’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children amounted to a war crime — the Kremlin has denied it committed any crimes.
In his speech Thursday, Zelenskyy said Russian forces had committed more than 6,000 war crimes in April alone, killing 207 Ukrainian civilians.
The Ukrainian president renewed his call to create a Nüremberg-style, “full-fledged” tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression and deliver “a full justice” — and lasting peace.
“The sustainability of peace arises from the complete justice towards the aggressor,” Zelenskyy said.
Speaking shortly before Zelenskyy, Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said the Netherlands was “ready and willing” to host that court, as well as registers of the damages caused by Russia’s invasion, echoing similar statements he made in December.
“Illegal wars cannot be unpunished,” Hoekstra said. “We will do everything in our power to ensure that Russia is held to account.”
For many officials, it’s a topic they won’t touch. When pressed, politicians give memorized, terse and robotic answers.
The verboten subject? Ukraine’s potential NATO membership.
It’s an issue so potentially combustible that many NATO allies try to avoid even talking about it. When Ukraine in September requested an accelerated process to join the military alliance, NATO publicly reiterated its open-door policybut didn’t give a concrete response. And last week, when NATO foreign ministers met, their final statement simply pointed toa vague2008 pledge that Ukraine would someday join the club.
Not mentioned: Ukraine’s recent request, any concrete steps toward membership or any timeline.
The reasons are manifold. NATO is fractured over how, when (and in a few cases even if) Ukraine should join. Big capitals also don’t want to provoke the Kremlin further, aware of Vladimir Putin’s hyper-sensitivity to NATO’s eastward expansion. And most notably, NATO membership would legally require allies to come to Ukraine’s aid in case of attack — a prospect many won’t broach.
The result is that while Europe and the U.S. have plowed through one taboo after another since Russia invaded Ukraine in February — funneling mountains of lethal military equipment to Kyiv, slapping once unthinkable sanctions on Moscow, defecting from Russian energy — the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO remains the third rail of international politics.
Touching the issue can leave you burned.
French President Emmanuel Macron sparked an outcry over the weekend when he said the West must consider security guarantees for Russia if it returns to the negotiating table — a gesture that enraged Kyiv and appeared to go against NATO’s open-door policy. And behind the scenes, Ukrainian officials themselves faced annoyed colleagues after making their public plea for swift membership.
“Some very good friends of Ukraine are more afraid of a positive reply to Ukraine’s bid for membership in NATO than of providing Ukraine with the most sophisticated weapons,” said Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister.
“There are still many psychological barriers that we have to overcome,” he told POLITICO in a recent interview. “The idea of membership is one of them.”
‘De facto’ ally
Ukraine’s leadership has argued that for all intents and purposes, it is already a member of the Western military alliance — and thus deserves a quick path to formal NATO membership.
“We are de facto allies,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared when announcing his country’s bid to join NATO | Alexey Furman/Getty Images
“We are de facto allies,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared in September when announcing his country’s bid to join NATO “under an accelerated procedure.”
“De facto, we have already completed our path to NATO. De facto, we have already proven interoperability with the alliance’s standards,” he added. “Ukraine is applying to make it de jure.”
The Ukrainian leader’s statement caught many of Kyiv’s closest partners by surprise — and left several grumbling.
The overture threatened to derail a plan the alliance’s most influential capitals had essentially settled on: Weapons now, membership talk later. It was an approach, they felt, that would deprive Moscow of a pretext to pull NATO directly into the conflict.
In their statement last week, ministers pledged to step up political and practical help for Ukraine while avoiding concrete plans for Kyiv’s future status.
Ultimately, however, few allies question Ukraine’s long-term membership prospects — at least in theory. The divisions are more over how and when the question of Kyiv’s membership should be addressed.
A number of Eastern allies are arguing for a closer political relationship between Ukraine and NATO, and they want a more concrete plan that sets the stage for membership.
“My thinking is that it is basically unavoidable,” said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, “that NATO will have to have a way to accept Ukraine.”
On the other end of the spectrum, France’s Macron wants to take Moscow’s perspective into account.
“One of the essential points we must address — as President [Vladimir] Putin has always said — is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia,” Macron told French television channel TF1 in an interview released Saturday.
Most other allies essentially evade the subject — not rejecting Ukraine’s NATO dreams but repeating a carefully crafted line about focusing on the current war.
Here’s NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s version, offered last week: “The most immediate and urgent task is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent democratic nation in Europe.”
“The most immediate and urgent task is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent democratic nation in Europe,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg | Armend Nimani/AFP via Getty
And here’s Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra’s take from the same week: “The task here is to make sure that the main thing continues to be the main thing — and that is helping out Ukraine on the battlefield.”
U.S. NATO Ambassador Julianne Smith echoed the point in an interview: “The focus right now is practical support to Ukraine.”
Analysts say the fault line lies between primarily Western European capitals such as Berlin and Paris — which see membership as an ultra-sensitive issue to be avoided at the moment — and some Eastern capitals that see Ukrainian accession as a goal the alliance can begin working toward.
Since the war began, that divide has only become more “exacerbated,” said Ben Schreer, executive director for Europe at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “Some countries simply don’t want to even have a conversation about this because they feel it might further harden Russian responses.”
Another path
Ukrainian officials do recognize that NATO membership is not imminent, but they still want a gesture from the alliance.
“The ideal scenario would, of course, be a very simple sentence from NATO: ‘OK, we receive your application, we begin the process of considering it.’ That would already be a major milestone achievement,” said Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, ahead of last week’s meeting.
Smith, the U.S. ambassador, said the Ukrainians are aware they need to do more before they could become members.
Ukraine formally adopted a constitutional amendment in 2019 committing to pursue NATO membership. But even though the country has pursued some reforms over the past few years, experts and partner governments say there’s more Ukraine must do to integrate Kyiv into Western institutions.
“There’s more work to be done, I don’t think that’s a mystery,” said Smith, adding: “I think they’d be the first to tell you that.”
As an interim solution, Kyiv has presented what it calls a pragmatic proposal for Western countries to help protect Ukraine.
“Russia was able to start this war precisely because Ukraine remained in the gray zone — between the Euro-Atlantic world and the Russian imperialism,” Zelenskyy said when presenting a 10-point peace plan in November.
The West’s “psychological barriers” need to be “overcome by changing the optics” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said | Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images
“So, how can we prevent repetition of Russia’s such aggression against us? We need effective security assurances,” he said, calling for an international conference to sign off on the so-called Kyiv Security Compact, a new set of security guarantees for Ukraine.
But it remains unclear whether Ukraine’s Western partners would be willing to make any legally binding guarantees — or if anything short of NATO’s Article 5 collective defense clause would prove a sufficient deterrent down the line.
“Some of those countries,” said IISS’ Schreer, “would be very reluctant.” Any written security guarantee, he noted, “from their perspective would probably invite strong Russian response, but it also would make them at this point of time part of this conflict.”
A Ukrainian victory, of course, could shift the calculus.
“If Ukraine is stuck in a stalemate, then NATO membership isn’t gonna happen,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But if it retakes its territory and accepts its borders — whatever those borders may be, whether it includes Crimea or does not, because that’s the fundamental question for Ukraine — then I think things can move very quickly.”
Asked if he is frustrated with Western partners, Kuleba was blunt.
“I know them too well to be frustrated with them — they are good friends,” he said. “It would be close to impossible for us to sustain the Russian pressure and to prevail on the battleground without them.”
But, the foreign minister added, the West’s “psychological barriers” need to be “overcome by changing the optics.”
Kyiv’s partners, he said, “have to begin to see Ukraine’s membership as an opportunity — and not as a threat.”
