John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the U.S. National Security Council, said there was a shift in momentum after Ukrainian forces recently recaptured large swaths of the northeastern region around the city of Kharkov.
Others are more skeptical.
Bundeswehr Inspector General Eberhard Zorn told a German news magazine that at best “a counterattack that could be used to retake individual sections of towns and lines, but not push Russia back on a broad front”. Looking. concentration Saturday.
Perhaps it is also from this sense of relative strength that the Ukrainian leadership presented the concept of post-war security.
The announcement was made jointly in Kyiv by Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, and former NATO secretary-general Anders Vor Rasmussen.
Long-term goal: NATO membership
The fact that Rasmussen tackled it already shows where the Ukrainian journey should go.
But first, the Ukrainian military needs to be equipped and trained for the future so that it can repel further Russian attacks.
The newspaper said a group of countries should guarantee Ukraine’s security. Possible guarantor countries are listed as USA, UK, Germany, Canada, Poland, Italy, France, Australia, Turkey, and Nordic and Baltic countries.
Roderich Kiesewetter, security policy spokesman for Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), described the concept as “wise and realistic as soon as Ukraine restores its territorial integrity.”
Kiesewetter told DW that NATO membership should also “remain a goal for Ukraine.” In his opinion, among the guarantor states “the nuclear-weapon states should also have a nuclear umbrella over Ukraine, otherwise there will be danger that Russia will continue to act with nuclear threats and extortion”.
For Johannes Varwick, a political scientist at the University of Halle, this notion is indeed a “wise reflection on the ‘later age'”.
“But the security difficulty lies in the fact that, on the one hand, it must be reliable in order to be useful to Ukraine, and on the other hand, it must be below the binding force of mutual assistance clauses. Russia. We need to agree to Article 5 of the NATO Treaty in order to be accepted by the United States,” Varwick told DW.
Vague commitment and bad experience
Ukraine, over the course of the war, has become less modest about its future security. Kyiv hinted at the start of the war that it could remain neutral forever, but NATO membership is now seen as essential.
At the end of August, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Olha Stefanishyna said Ukraine’s only option was direct accession.
The claim was probably also in response to the G7 meeting in Germany at the end of June. In its final declaration at the time, the G7 countries expressed their willingness to “agree to long-term security commitments to assist Ukraine in its self-defense.” When DW asked Prime Minister Olaf Scholz if he could be more specific about these security pledges, he replied in a widely shared video, “Yes.” Then, after a brief pause with a grin, he added, “That’s it.”
Ukraine already had to learn with the so-called Budapest Memorandum of 1994 that international security pledges, if formulated in concrete terms, are of little value. Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine have received security guarantees from the US, UK and Russia.
They were guaranteed sovereignty and the inviolability of their borders. The US and UK guarantors are at the forefront of international arms support to Ukraine today, but have never intervened directly militarily.
Today, more than ever, Ukraine is pushing to join the Western Defense Alliance. However, his political scientist Varwick, in contrast to CDU politician Kiesewetter, thinks this is false. This argument creates more problems than it solves. “
Ukraine’s Andriy Yermak asked for new security guarantees
Medvedev: Guarantees will be ‘prelude to World War III’
Conflicting statements have been made in recent days about whether Russia is ready for new negotiations in the wake of the recent Ukrainian attack. told French broadcaster France24. But there is no confirmation from Moscow.
Instead, Moscow reacted sharply to the concept of international security guarantees. These will be “the prelude to World War III,” said former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
He said they would be closer to their mutual aid obligations under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. ” Medvedev threatened.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov even denied Ukraine’s desire to join NATO in order to re-justify Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Therefore, “the greatest danger to our country also remains, and therefore the reasons for the need for a special military operation are still relevant and, in fact, even more relevant,” said Peskov, the Russian news agency Interfax. told to
Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev said Ukraine’s demands threaten world war
a little hope for peace
Speaking on the phone for the first time after a three-and-a-half-month hiatus with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Scholz said Russia was unwilling to negotiate: “Unfortunately, I can’t. Who started this war?” Please pass on the growing awareness that it was a mistake,” Scholz said Wednesday.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed disillusionment after a phone call with President Putin. “It would be naive to think we are close to a possible peace deal,” he said.
Therefore, it is highly likely that ideas about the post-war order will remain purely theoretical for the time being.
Political scientist Berwick also believes that security guarantees only make sense if they are part of a political solution that is “based on conviction and supported by both sides.”
But at the moment there are no questions about it. Even with the recent Ukrainian offensive, he has yet to “see a true turning point in the war. Russia continues to have the means and the will to escalate and has not yet exhausted its potential for escalation.”
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