Negotiations with the West: What Putin wants from NATO

Negotiations with the west
What Putin wants from NATO

By Denis Trubetskoy, Kiev

For almost two months, Russia has been demanding security guarantees from the West, which concern the non-enlargement of NATO and, above all, Ukraine. She is increasingly concerned because Kiev is not involved in most of the talks.

Since mid-November, Russian foreign policy has focused primarily on putting an end to the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe. On November 18, Russian President Vladimir Putin set the clear goal of obtaining so-called long-term security guarantees from the West. “We need legal guarantees because our Western colleagues have not always fulfilled their verbal obligations,” Putin said at the beginning of December when Russian troops marched on the Ukrainian border – according to Kiev, there are now more than 100,000 soldiers there.

In mid-December, the Russian Foreign Ministry published some draft treaties with the USA and other NATO member states, which, among other things, prevent NATO from setting up military bases in the former Soviet republics and not accepting them as members. In addition, the alliance is to suspend military activities on the territory of Ukraine and other countries in Eastern Europe, Transcaucasia and Central Asia.

Diplomatic and military pressure from Russia initially led US President Joe Biden to videocall Putin twice in December. More concrete negotiations are now following: On January 10, Russian representatives will speak with their US colleagues in Geneva as part of the so-called strategic security dialogue. The Russia-NATO Council will meet on January 12, and Russia will meet the OSCE on January 13.

“Moscow’s goal is to complete the revision of the basic conditions for the outcome of the Cold War in favor of Russia, which begins with the Russian annexation of Crimea in spring 2014,” writes Russian foreign policy expert Vladimir Frolov in an analysis for the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank. “The tectonic change in European politics proposed by Russia is formulated as a ‘solution to the crisis over Ukraine’ under the terms of the Kremlin.” However, Moscow’s maximum demands sometimes go far beyond Ukraine. The decision not to expand NATO caused outrage among non-members Sweden and Finland, for example, who at least want to keep membership open as a theoretical option and decide for themselves.

Kiev views Western promises with caution

It is difficult to imagine that the West will respond to most of the Russian demands – and the USA also always make it clear that they do not want to make any decisions without involving the partners in the EU, NATO and Ukraine, while Moscow makes no secret of its wish power to negotiate directly with Washington in particular. From a Ukrainian point of view, however, concerns are growing because Kiev is not involved in most of the talks about Ukraine.

That was also the case on January 6th, when representatives from Germany, France and Russia spoke to each other about the conflict in eastern Ukraine, in Moscow of all places. The Ukrainian representative of this so-called Normandy format for resolving the Donbass War telephoned his German and French colleagues in advance. But this seemed mostly a formality.

The fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj was only allowed to speak to US Foreign Minister Blinken before the first Biden Putin video summit did not go unnoticed in Kiev. And even after the summit, it was only Zelenskyi’s turn after other European heads of state and government had spoken to Biden.

At the beginning of January, the US President once again assured his Ukrainian colleague that he would be supported in the event of a Russian attack. Such statements are, however, perceived with great caution in Kiev. Especially since Washington and Berlin made a joint declaration on the controversial Baltic Sea pipeline Nord Stream 2 in the summer of 2021, when Russia was threatened with sanctions, the pipeline was intended to be used as a “political weapon”, but the two countries remained extremely vague. In the best-case scenario, Kiev would like a detailed roadmap explaining which sanctions will be adopted and under which conditions.

Majority of Ukrainians are in favor of joining NATO

One of the main reasons for Russia’s current line of business is probably the NATO resolution of June 2020, which granted Ukraine the status of a so-called Enhanced Opportunities Partner. The alliance membership targeted by Kiev, but currently politically unrealistic, did not accelerate this. “This opens the door to what the Kremlin calls the ‘military appropriation of Ukraine’,” emphasized Vladimir Frolov in his analysis. The status of a key ally of the USA outside of NATO, which is mentioned more and more often in Kiev, would remove almost all restrictions on military cooperation with Washington.

Therefore, Russia is not only concerned with the theoretical NATO membership of Ukraine, which is still a long way off, but simply with NATO activities in the country. However, even the conditions for Ukraine to become a NATO member have improved a lot since the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Donbass. While NATO was still a controversial topic in the Ukrainian public in the first few years after the Maidan revolution, the clear majority of Ukrainians are now in favor of joining. President Zelenskyi, who, unlike his predecessor Petro Poroshenko, initially viewed the issue with caution, speaks of NATO membership as the only fundamental solution to his country’s long-term problem with Russia.

Moscow itself is primarily responsible for this development. Zelenskyi, who took office as President of Peace in spring 2019, initially tried to relax the situation by withdrawing troops at the front and exchanging prisoners. However, the first Russian troop deployment on the Ukrainian border in the spring of 2021 ruined the successful ceasefire in Donbass. Also due to the issue of Russian passports and the factual economic annexation of the separatist areas by Russia, Kiev’s wish for more security is understandable. Under these circumstances, major concessions by the West to Russia would be almost fatal.

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