Cooperation between Ukraine and NATO is gaining momentum, Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksandr Kuzmuk said after his meeting with the NATO Defense Ministers Commission in Brussels. NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson pointed out some notable changes in Ukraine’s defense sphere. But in general, the past few years have seen some progress, albeit not too considerable or trendsetting, in the relations between Kyiv and the alliance despite some earlier differences about the Kosovo crisis and bombing of Yugoslavia. This progress is primarily in the nonmilitary sphere: overcoming the consequences of natural disasters like the floods in Transcarpathia and cooperation in scientific research. In the military sphere, emphasis is being put on cooperation in peacekeeping operations, joint exercises, and training. Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada International Affairs Committee Ihor Ostash stressed when addressing a workshop on Ukraine’s preparedness to join NATO that the Ukrainian- Polish battalion, now on a peacekeeping mission in Yugoslavia, is “in fact a Ukrainian-NATO one.”
Many reiterate that Ukraine’s aspiration to integrate into Euro- Atlantic structures could play a positive role in the development of democracy, military reform, and increasing the level of national security. Many insist precisely on political, not military cooperation in order to keep our credentials as a nonaligned state safe from Russian criticism. Others think it is precisely under the wing of NATO that we can peacefully coexist with our larger neighbor. President of the Atlantic Council of Ukraine Vadym Hrechanynov claims that “NATO is the only incentive for our country’s defense development.” Mykhailo Honchar, a leading expert at the Strategy-1 International Foundation, noted that Ukraine is so far unprepared to speak about NATO membership because this country’s leadership is not prepared to take such a step.
As Nadiya Tsok, acting chief of the NATO and European security section in the Euro-Atlantic Cooperation Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told The Day that the alliance’s eastward expansion will help solve all Ukraine’s border problems with its western neighbors (one of the NATO requirements is absence of territorial claims by candidates for membership). This applies first of all to Rumania with which Kyiv has not yet settled the problem of border delimitation. Ukraine, according to Ms. Tsok, does not oppose NATO enlargement, for it is the right of any state to join. “If our neighbors want this, it is their national interest and their right, which we are obliged to respect.”
However, for all the rosy prospects of partnership with the alliance, there is also a host of problems. Ukrainian experts draw attention to the slowing of expansion by the alliance itself, which began to exercise more caution about this process after the first wave of expansion in 1999. In addition, the new members — Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic — do not yet fully meet all the required standards.
Another problem is a supposedly negative reaction of Russia to the likely admission of the Baltic states, whose interests are being actively defended in Brussels by Poland, to the alliance. The admission of post-Soviet states to NATO will create tremendous psychological problems in Russia. The more so that most of the post-Soviet establishment outside the Baltic states still use the Cold War vocabulary which says that in this case NATO will thrust 650 km deep into former Soviet territory, while the distance between the NATO borders and Saint Petersburg, in fact the second Russian capital, will be a mere 160 km. There are also certain differences within the alliance about other problems. Major discussions are being held about the need to form a detached European army (corps), as well as over deployment of the US national antimissile system. Under any circumstances, Ukraine has only two options which do not run counter to its selected foreign policy line: either to pretend that nothing is happening and consider that the proclaimed principle of nonalignment is thus being observed, or to initiate a more profound approach to the solution of European security problems, thus confirming in deed, not only in word, its strategic position on the continent.
