Land waiver against NATO umbrella?
Stoltenberg employee sees a solution for Ukraine
08/15/2023, 9:11 p.m
So far, Ukraine wants to liberate all Russian-occupied territories. A suggestion made by a high-ranking NATO official caused horror in Kiev: Ukraine could give up territory and receive NATO membership in return. The Russian hardliner Medvedev immediately makes creative suggestions.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s chief of staff brings up possible territory cessions by Ukraine. “I think one solution could be for Ukraine to give up territory in exchange for NATO membership,” the Norwegian newspaper quoted as saying “Verden’s Walk” a statement by Stoltenberg’s colleague Stian Jenssen at a panel discussion in Arendal.
Speaking about Ukraine’s future NATO membership, he said, “It’s important that we discuss it,” the report said. One has to think about what the security situation in Ukraine will look like after the end of the war. “There is considerable movement on the question of Ukraine’s future NATO membership. It is in all our interests that the war does not repeat itself,” said Jenssen.
When asked by the “Verdens Gang” whether it was NATO’s view that Ukraine had to give up territory in exchange for peace with Russia and future NATO membership, Jenssen pointed out that the discussion about a possible post-war status had already started in the was in progress and the issue of the territorial cession to Russia had been raised by others. “I’m not saying it has to be that way. But it could be a possible solution,” Jenssen said.
At the same time, he also emphasized: “Ukraine must be free to decide when and under what conditions it wants to negotiate.” This is Stoltenberg’s official position so far. He had repeatedly emphasized that it was up to Ukraine to determine both the time and the conditions for negotiations with Russia. At the G7 summit in July, Stoltenberg also declared: “Of course, the most urgent task is to ensure that Ukraine can assert itself. Because if Ukraine does not continue to exist, there is no question of membership either.”
Outrage in Kyiv
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine sharply criticized Jensen’s statement, like the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform reported. The authority’s spokesman, Oleg Nikolenko, called his statements “absolutely unacceptable”. “We always assumed that the alliance, like Ukraine, does not trade with territories,” says Nikolenko. He also warned that some NATO officials were getting involved in the narrative of a possible cession of Ukrainian territory playing into Russia’s hands.
The Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak has a similar opinion: “This is ridiculous. It means making a conscious decision to defeat democracy, to encourage a global criminal to preserve the Russian regime, to destroy international law and to wage war on other generations pass it on,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “If Putin does not suffer a crushing defeat, if the political regime in Russia does not change and if war criminals are not punished, then war will surely return and Russia will want more,” Podoliak stressed.
He immediately made it clear that at least the Vice Chairman of the National Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, would like more. The Russian news agency TASS quoted him as saying that if Ukraine were to give up areas in order to join NATO, Kiev would also have to give it up. “In order to join the bloc, the Kiev authorities would have to give up even Kiev itself, the capital of ancient Rus.” Then the Ukraine would have to move the capital to Lviv, according to the ex-president, who has meanwhile turned hardliner. “Of course only if the Poles agree.”