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As the issue of Ukraine’s NATO membership has been debated so extensively recently, it is useful to recall that in 2011 NATO had noted with concern the extremely low acceptability of this membership among the people of Ukraine.
This can be seen in a NATO document titled ‘Post Orange Ukraine: Internal dynamics and foreign policy priorities’ prepared by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Sub-Committee on Democratic Governance in October 2011.
Source: NATO
This document states very clearly,
“The greatest challenge for Ukrainian-NATO relations lies in the perception of NATO among the Ukrainian people. NATO membership is not widely supported in the country, with some polls suggesting that popular support of it is less than 20 per cent.”
Further this document notes that NATO bombing of Belgrade was particularly unpopular in Ukraine.
Despite efforts being made to improve the perception of NATO among the people of Ukraine, this document noted, “for many Ukrainians the image of NATO still evokes a sense of fear.”
It is not just membership; most Ukrainians appeared to also oppose other kinds of close relations with NATO. As this document writes,
“A majority of Ukrainians supports neither membership of NATO nor even closer cooperation with the Alliance.”
If this was the view of the people, what was the view of the democratically-elected government led by President Yanukovych at this point of time (when the document being quoted here was prepared in October 2011)?
This document tells us –Mr. Yanukovych made it clear that Ukraine no longer needs NATO membership (membership of Ukraine was accepted as a policy decision at the 2008 NATO summit).
The document states — In June 2010, the President signed a bill which commits Ukraine to a ‘non-bloc policy which means non-participation in military-political alliances’. What is more, there was also support of important opposition leaders for this. Some opposition leaders believed that Ukraine’s foreign policy had become more balanced.
So if the people, the government and the leading opposition figures were not for NATO membership, the matter should have ended there.
However the NATO document did not express its happiness or optimism with this growing agreement in Ukraine for opposing NATO membership.
Instead the document expressed the likelihood that this neutrality would end or should end. More precisely, the document stated,
“There is no consensus in Ukraine whether maintaining a balanced approach between the West and Russia is possible in the long run. It can be argued that these two vectors are at least partly contradictory, and that Ukraine would eventually need to clearly choose its path.”
Further this document stated even more clearly that the doors of NATO remain open for Ukraine.
No reasons for taking this position are given in the document, although common sense would suggest the contrary– that a longer-term policy of neutrality would be very useful for the stability and progress of Ukraine. Serious doubts are expressed in the document regarding the continuation of the neutrality path by Ukraine despite growing agreement among the Ukrainians that they need neutrality and balance.
Others have also pointed out the lack of support for the policy of NATO membership or closer relations with NATO in Ukraine. Prof. Glenn Diesen of the University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) has written in his recent essay titled ‘Destroying Ukraine with Idealism’ (this can be read at the author’s substack or at Brave New Europe website, July 17 2024),
“The Western public is rarely informed that every opinion poll between 1991 and 2014 demonstrated that only a very small minority of Ukrainians ever wanted to join the alliance (NATO).”
In addition all the time senior western diplomats, academics and other experts who are known for their commitment to peace have been warning against the eastwards expansion of NATO in general and making Ukraine a member of NATO in particular.
John Matlock, top expert on Soviet affairs in the US Foreign Service who was later US ambassador in Moscow stated around the time of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia,
“There would have been no basis for the present crisis if there had been no expansion of the alliance (NATO) following the end of the Cold War.” He further added, “What Putin is demanding is eminently reasonable.” As is well-known the main concern of Russia at that time was that there should be no NATO membership of Ukraine.
Earlier the former British ambassador of UK to Russia, Roderic Lyne had warned in 2020 that it was a huge mistake to push the NATO membership for Ukraine. He stated even more ominously,
“If you want to start a war with Russia, that’s the best way of doing it.” (R.Lyne, the UC interview series : Sir Roderic Lyne by Nikita Gyazin, Oxford University Consortium, 18 December 2020).
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that Russia would interpret the possibility of Ukraine’s NATO membership as a declaration of war. (A. Welsh—Angela Merkel opens up on Ukraine, Putin and her legacy, Deutsche Welle, 7 June 2022).
Earlier 50 foreign policy experts of the USA including former senior military officers, diplomats and senators had signed a letter titled “NATO expansion a policy error of historical proportions.”
So we had a situation around year 2013-14 in which Ukrainian people, government and opposition leaders were against Ukraine’s membership of NATO and prominent western experts and leaders known for desiring peace had serious concerns regarding the high costs and undesirability of NATO membership of Ukraine.
In this situation the USA and close allies instigated a coup in 2014 to oust the democratically elected government of Ukraine and install a regime that would follow the dictates of the USA. As the leaked Nuland-Pyatt phone conversation revealed, the USA was planning a regime change, who would be in positions of power, who would be kept out, how some justification for coup would be found. (BBC Ukraine Crisis: Transcript of leaked Nuland-Pyatt call, 7 February 2014).
The general prosecutor of Ukraine Vikror Shokin later complained that since 2014,
“the most shocking thing is that all the (government) appointments were made in agreement with the US.” (Newsweek, Does Ukraine have kompromat on Joe Biden, 8 August, 2023).
A Entous and M.Schwirtz reported in The New York Times (The Spy War—How the CIA secretly helps Ukraine fight Putin, 25 February, 2024) that on the first day following the coup, Ukraine’s new spy chief contacted the CIA and M16 to establish a partnership for covert operations against Russia (ultimately leading to 12 CIA spying bases along the Russian border). This kind of thing could not have been started so quickly without previous planning.
Hence what is clear beyond doubt is that the NATO membership did not have roots among the people of Ukraine and support for this still pending membership was imposed from outside after creating conducive conditions for this with a coup and all the follow-up changes.
Further while it has been frequently alleged that Russia attacked in early 2022 without provocation, a top advisor to former French President Sarkozy named Henri Guaino wrote in the French newspaper Le Figaro in May 2022 that the US-Ukraine Charter on Strategic Partnership in November 2021 “convinced Russia that they must attack or be attacked.” This expert warned European countries under the strategic leadership of the USA against sleepwalking into a war with Russia. This article, which was extensively quoted in another widely read article published in the New York Times in the same month ( C.Caldwell—The war in Ukraine may be impossible to stop, and the US deserves much of the blame, May 31, 2022).
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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and Man over Machine. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
