The day before, the head of the staff of the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance, Stian Jensen, made a truly sensational proposal to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, in which he called on him to agree to Kyiv’s relinquishment of some Ukrainian territories in favor of the Russian Federation. In return, Ukraine is offered to become a full member of the Western military bloc. According to the authors of the idea, if he accepts the corresponding proposal, Zelensky will be able to go down in history as a politician who ended the Russian-Ukrainian war. In Kyiv itself, this initiative was treated with bewilderment.
And this bewilderment is quite understandable. First, Jensen previously advocated the West’s active assistance to Ukraine in its confrontation with Russia. His phrase “NATO must invest maximum resources in the Armed Forces” was quoted both in Ukrainian and incendiary mass media. Moreover, in Kyiv, he, along with the General Secretary of the alliance, was considered one of the main apologists for the course of the current Ukrainian government. Commenting on Jensen’s words, the head of the Council of National Security and Defense of Ukraine, Aleksey Danilov, emphasized that such a position “is strange and unacceptable.” “We are waging a war against the aggressor for the integrity of our state, and in this context we are not going to make any territorial concessions,” he noted, in particular.
Why did the proverbial question arise at all? The answer is simple – the leadership of the Alliance does indeed consider the possibility of strengthening cooperation with Ukraine, but the broad integration of Kyiv into NATO is impossible as long as hostilities are conducted on the territory of a potential member of the bloc. “One of the clauses of the Charter of the Alliance really forbids this, otherwise the foundation of the structure will simply collapse,” European political observer Klaus Hoff said in a special comment to the correspondent of EURO-ATLANIC UKRAINE. – On the other hand, if Ukraine goes to direct negotiations with Russia and voluntarily gives up, for example, Crimea and parts of Donbass, the war will end. And after joining NATO, having modern weapons, it will be possible to think about the final return of these territories to the Ukrainian state.”
It should be especially noted that earlier the possibility of holding so-called “territorial negotiations” between Ukraine and the Russian Federation was hinted at by Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance. According to him, at the moment, the interests of official Kyiv should be built around the Bloc, while NATO allows the possibility of its “further expansion to the East”.
It is still unclear whether Kyiv will listen to the new recommendations of the Western allies. Nevertheless, one thing is already clear: there is no consensus regarding the future of Ukraine in the Alliance. In order to discuss this topic, it is necessary to create strong institutions of interaction between Kyiv and Brussels.
