What security guarantees does Ukraine need?
Dette innlegget er også tilgjengelig i: Norsk bokmål Русский Українська
Providing a so-called security guarantee to Ukraine after a peace agreement is a key point. US President Donald Trump has now opened the door for the US to be included in such a guarantee. Vladimir Putin will never accept a security guarantee that includes foreign soldiers in Ukraine. Ukraine, for its part, wants a permanent foreign force to protect Ukraine. Ukraine has had bad experiences with agreements made with Putin. They also have bad experiences with written agreements on guarantees for their borders. A security guarantee is not a question of peace or war. The question for Ukraine is the country’s existence.
Safety guarantee from 1994
In 1994, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. Feel free to read my blog about this. The world picture looked a little different. In Russia, Boris Yeltsin was president. Disarmament was central, as was the idea of limiting the number of countries with nuclear weapons. Russia and Western Europe cooperated more closely and the two Cold War blocs lived in ever greater harmony. In Western Europe and the USA, there was an understanding that the danger to Russia militarily was not there. The country was also struggling economically. More and more countries in the former Soviet sphere became democratic, and countries that were previously part of the Soviet Union gained their independence. One of these countries was Ukraine.
In an effort to limit the number of countries with nuclear weapons, Ukraine was seen as a good project. At the time, Ukraine had the world’s third largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. Ukraine was more skeptical of Russia’s then approach to democracy and as a non-aggressive power. To get Ukraine to agree to give up its nuclear weapons, an agreement was signed that would guarantee the country’s borders. This agreement is known as the Budapest Memorandum. The agreement was signed by the then President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk, the US, the UK and Russia. These countries would guarantee Ukraine’s borders.
Russia’s development
After Borits Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin took over as President of Russia. With him, development in Russia came to a halt. The country has developed in the direction of a dictatorship. Putin himself has stated that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a mistake. His desire is clearly to rebuild the old Soviet empire.
The democratic development Russia saw under Boris Yeltsin came to a halt. In today’s Russia, state-controlled media control virtually all information. Putin’s party wins the elections overwhelmingly. The opposition has been imprisoned or fled the country. Opposing candidates to Putin and his party are harmless support parties.
Through oil and gas discoveries, Russia has built up a strong economy. This, in turn, has led to the country building up its defense. This is happening at the same time as Western Europe is reducing its defenses. Nobody in Western Europe saw the danger from the East until 2014.
Budapest Memorandum zero value
When Crimea was annexed by Russia and Russian rebels took control of parts of Donbas, it turned out to be a security guarantee of no value. An attack by Putin’s Russia, one of the guarantors of Ukraine’s borders, shows that the agreement had zero value. The US and the UK reacted, along with much of the international community. The reactions were small. Banning individuals from entering the country and freezing their assets is one example. Most of them had probably never been outside Russia’s borders or had any assets.
Developments in Donbas eventually turned into a frozen conflict. That is, a conflict where the borders were largely permanent and stable and where skirmishes were small. Ukraine’s desire for NATO membership gained momentum in the wake of Russia’s aggression in 2014. On February 24, 2022, Putin launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine. The attempt to take the entire country in a couple of days fails. Today, the fighting along the entire frontline is fierce. Up to a million people have lost their lives. Thousands of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped by Russia. The security guarantee given in 1994 was worthless. The USA, the UK and large parts of the international community reacted with stronger sanctions against Russia. Now weapons are also being given to Ukraine. Both the arms aid and the sanctions came too late. If arms aid had been given earlier, Putin’s war machine would probably not have got any further than the border.
Ukraine’s lessons learned from a security guarantee
Leonid Kravchuk did not know that the security guarantee given was a piece of paper without any content. Ukraine has learned from this. Skepticism about fine words from the US and Europe is not enough. A security guarantee must contain something more, such as soldiers on Ukrainian soil.
Former US President Bill Clinton is now saying that he regrets his role in pressuring Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons. Feel free to read my blog about this. Whether this would have prevented Russia from attacking Ukraine, we do not know. But the fact is that none of the countries that guaranteed Ukraine’s borders stood for the guarantee.
Putin knows that Ukraine will demand a security guarantee involving soldiers. Russia is not interested in this. The reason is obvious. Putin wants a so-called peace agreement that gives him time to prepare a new attack on Ukraine. Putin wants a Ukraine that dismantles its defenses. Nor does he want foreign soldiers on Ukrainian soil. A Ukraine with a reduced defense and without soldiers from other countries will be an easy prey in a few months or a year.
Putin’s tactic is to stall for time. Let the war continue and make it appear that Putin is genuinely interested in peace. Ukraine has learned that the Russian bear will not be stopped by lines on a piece of paper.