Few Ukrainians expected NATO to invite their country to join. And yet the vagueness of the Vilnius decisions disappoints many. Some fear that this could prolong the war.
Andrii Husak was buried this week. The young Ukrainian soldier lost both his legs in fighting near Orihiv in the Zaporizhia region in the south of the country. He was evacuated with serious injuries and later died in hospital. Husak could have worked as a lawyer, his mother Olga Husak said at the funeral in Dnipro, but he didn’t want that.
Death and loss, around a fifth of the country occupied by Russia and fierce fighting in the south and east: this is the reality of the people in Ukraine. Hardly anyone expected an official NATO invitation, but the summit in Vilnius certainly did not deliver what the political leadership and most people had hoped for.
In the end there was no formal invitation, no specific date for it, but a put off for later. Only after the Russian war of aggression should Ukraine’s accession be possible in principle. Allianz is also linking this to reforms, for example in the area of fighting corruption.
“Only a matter of time”
Eva Boyko from Kiev says that even though she was aware that there would be no invitation this time, she was disappointed because the decisions taken in Vilnius were a signal to Russia “that they can continue with more peace of mind.”
Boyko is now hoping for the next opportunity, and Sergei Kuprin is also “100 percent certain” that it will one day work out, it’s “only a matter of time”. For the time being, however, the disappointment is great, says the Kiev native, even if the NATO states give Ukraine weapons, that still isn’t a security guarantee – like an invitation to NATO would be.
The attacks continue unchanged
On the first day of the summit, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi expressed his disappointment that it was absurd if there was no timeframe for Ukraine’s invitation and membership. Hesitation will motivate Russia to continue.
During the NATO meeting, too, there were Russian rocket and drone attacks, including on Odessa, the Sumy region in the north-east and Kiev. A woman was killed in artillery shelling of the frontline city of Kherson.
“What are the conditions like?”
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba put it on Radio Swoboda – and that is exactly the problem. “What do they look like?” asked the minister, when will they be fulfilled – and who will formulate them?
Volodymyr Yermolenko, journalist and President of the Ukrainian Pen Club, wrote on Twitter that nobody should be afraid and postpone decisions until after the war. Because when it is said that Ukraine will become a NATO member after the war, it is “an invitation to Putin to drag it out.”
According to Yermolenko, NATO has “been at war for a long time,” and he enumerates: “We have NATO weapons, we have NATO advisers – NATO is already engaged in a kind of hybrid war.”
Just “a body”
The NATO-Ukraine Council met for the first time at the Vilnius Summit. Political experts like Volodymyr Horbatsch from the international Euro-Atlantic center in Kiev expect little from this. Before the Russian attack, Horbatsch argues, the Ukrainians would have applauded the alliance’s decision. Now he sees it more as a “political diversionary maneuver”.
In the council, Ukraine can “discuss interesting things” with all NATO members, says Horbatsch. But it’s just “a body” – and it’s not about security guarantees, NATO accession and how Ukraine can be protected. He hopes “that this body will exist until accession and not for long”.
What is in the hands of Ukrainians
There will be weapons, support and a sovereign, independent Ukraine – these are the most important results of Vilnius, presidential adviser Mikhail Podoljak wrote on Twitter after the end of the meeting: the life and security of Ukraine are in their own hands, he wrote, just like the future and security of Europe.
The fallen young soldier Andrii Husak cannot experience any of this. At 28, he rests in the Dnipro cemetery, and his mother, Olha Husak, is full of bitterness. She hopes his brothers will rake him, she said – “and after every bullet that’s fired in the direction of the enemy, I’ll feel better”.