Ukraine Reflections: Why I am Worried and Hopeful at the Same Time

NATO leaders must come together in Washington and promise to do what they can to ensure Ukraine succeeds and Russia fails. Nothing else matters.

REUTERS/Yves Herman

I have been traveling in Europe a bunch (London, Paris, Tallinn, Athens, Nicosia…) and haven’t posted as much and frequently as I would’ve liked. But I have been thinking — and talking — a lot about Ukraine.

Despite the (belated) approval of US military aid in April and (also belated and too limited) approval to use US and other western weapons to strike targets inside Russia, the situation inside Ukraine is increasingly worrisome. To be sure, the frontlines are not moving as much as some had feared when Russia took Avdiivka in Eastern Donetsk and launched its offensive north of Kharkiv in the last few months. But territorial control is only a tactical measure of how the war is going. Strategically, it’s not going well.

Reasons to Worry

Let me explain. Russia’s goal in Ukraine is less territorial occupation than controlling Ukraine’s political and strategic destiny. It’s trying to break Ukraine’s capacity and will to resist, by pummeling its forces at the front, stretching its defenses thin, and targeting civilian infrastructure, notably energy and defense production, through long distance strikes. It hasn’t succeeded yet. But it’s making progress.

The six months’ delay in providing munitions and air defense interceptors have taken their toil on Ukraine. For months, Ukrainian forces on the front line were outmanned and outgunned. Part of this was due to the hiatus in shipping munitions. But part resulted from Kyiv’s long delay in mobilizing additional forces . The result is that the balance of forces is currently weighing in Russia’s favor — and will continue to do so until weapons supplies reach the front and sufficient forces are mobilized and trained to replace exhausted units.

Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure is also being pummeled, with dire consequences. Russia has succeeded in destroying 50 percent of Ukraine’s power generation, causing widespread blackouts and threatening to keep Ukraine in the dark and cold for much of the time come winter. Russia’s repeated missile and drone bombardments of Ukrainian cities has also increased casualties among civilians in recent months. Things will only get worse until far more air defense systems and interceptors arrive to protect cities and infrastructure.

My worry is that we’re not moving quickly enough, and that Ukraine is running out of time. I addressed all these concerns in my interview with Ian Bremmer for his PBS Show, GZERO World.

Reasons to be Hopeful

And, yet, I remain hopeful that things need not turn out as bad as it currently sounds. There is a growing realization among NATO leaders, including President Biden, that the security of NATO members — the future of NATO itself — is on the line in Ukraine. As President Biden put it in his D-Day speech the other day:

The United States and NATO and a coalition of more than 50 countries standing strong with Ukraine.  We will not walk away because if we do, Ukraine will be subjugated. 

And it will not end there.  Ukraine’s neighbors will be threatened.  All of Europe will be threatened. 

And make no mistake, the autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine, to see if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked.  We cannot let that happen. 

These are fine words — reflecting sound sentiment and reasoning. The analysis makes clear that failure in Ukraine is not an option — for NATO or for the United States. And that realization is bound to influence deliberations in the runup to the NATO Summit next month in Washington — and the conversations that will take place there.

When NATO leaders meet July 9-11 to celebrate 75 years of alliance, they will need to agree on how they can succeed in Ukraine and ensure Russia does not. There is a large menu of options that they can choose from, starting with a set of recommendations issued last month by an international task force, led by former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Head of the Office to President Zelensky, Andriy Yermak, of which I was a member.

The report outlines proposals “to immediately reinforce Ukraine’s security, help to contain and then end the war, and bridge Ukraine to its future in NATO.” It recommends:

• Issuing an invitation at the NATO Summit in Washington D.C. for Ukraine to start accession talks to join the alliance and inviting the NATO-Ukraine Council to define specific conditions for membership.

• Setting a clear timeframe for Ukrainian NATO membership of no later than July 2028, provided specific conditions are met.

• Containing the war as a first step to ending the war, by strengthening Ukraine and its allies’ efforts to deny Russia’s operational success on land, at sea, and in the air.

• Lifting all caveats on types of conventional weapons delivered to Ukraine and all caveats on their use against military targets inside Russia.

• Bringing the web of bilateral security agreements between Ukraine and its partners under the framework of an international compact.

• Building Ukraine’s future force so that it can reach – before the end of the decade – a size and structure robust enough to defend against a future conventional attack by Russia and positively contribute to NATO’s collective defense plans.

• A commitment by NATO Allies to spend the equivalent of 0.25% of their GDP on military assistance to Ukraine.

• Unblocking the $300 billion of frozen Russian assets and using them to support Ukraine.

• Setting clear reform and governance benchmarks for Ukraine, fully aligned with the EU accession process.

• Developing a set of assurances on the defensive nature of Ukraine’s future NATO membership.

If NATO leaders were to agree to most or all of these recommendations in Washington they will have taken a giant step towards ensuring Russia will fail and Ukraine will succeed. There would be no way better to celebrate a 75th birthday than by doing just that.