Oleksandr Duleba: Ukraine will join NATO
07.08.2023
Oleksandr Duleba
The results of the NATO summit in Vilnius were perceived differently. Oleksandr Duleba, a senior researcher at the Slovak Association of Foreign Affairs in Bratislava, shared his opinion about his own conclusions and whether Budapest-2 is possible in this direction with the Newssky.
The Budapest Memorandum and the Vilnius Communiqué cannot be compared. All the words written in the communiqué have real weight; the position of NATO members is expressed there; it is a completely different matter. The Communiqué is a special document that expresses the position and will of NATO member countries. The Budapest Memorandum was a declaration of intent by four countries, according to which Ukraine gave up its stockpiles of nuclear warheads in return, and the four countries provided guarantees of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and national security. One of the signatories to the memorandum, Russia, violated it. You can tell from the results-based view what the expectations were. There is a sentence there: the future of Ukraine is in NATO. Period.
Why is it impossible for Ukraine to join NATO now? We see Sweden, and we see Hungary’s position. The decision to accept a certain country cannot be made without the consensus of the member countries. Ukraine’s current entry into NATO means NATO’s war with Russia. This is another stage of the war, a global great war. And here it follows that not all member states, although they are ready to support Ukraine, except for Hungary, to support and help Ukraine.
The Ramstein Group also includes 54 countries, 30 of which are NATO members. Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Ukraine, which are not members of NATO, were at the level of heads of state present at the summit in Vilnius, and Bosnia and Herzegovina were at the level of ministers of foreign affairs. The NATO summit is the highest form of the North Atlantic Council. In the Washington Treaty adopted in 1949, institutional article 9 gives competence to the North Atlantic Council to make decisions. Therefore, it should be formed in such a way that it has the opportunity to hold a meeting for the first time. The North Atlantic Council holds meetings at the level of ambassadors in Brussels, ministers of foreign affairs, and ministers of defense; the decisions reached have the same value for all NATO members. And the decision, expressed in the communiqué, that Ukraine will be a member of NATO was signed by all members of the alliance.
The peculiarity of this event is that they themselves did not gather because of such issues, and this happened for the first time in Ukraine. That is, this decision is mandatory. The self-declaration is what binds all his payments. Negotiations continued before the summit, and the communiqué was adopted by consensus. I didn’t expect anything more. The adopted decision is the maximum possible. The phrase is about the future of Ukraine is in NATO is an invitation by itself.
The communiqué records the real state of affairs. Ukraine has allies, and these are not only NATO members but also the Ramstein group, which expresses the opinion that this war should stop the restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty within the internationally limited borders of 1991. It is important. This is a real deal.
All in all, 54 countries are helping Ukraine. So these are allies of Ukraine. Russia has no allies. China is a partner, not an ally. Of course, there was an expectation that Sweden would be invited to join NATO, as Erdoğan had agreed a few days before, but Hungary blocked that possibility by allowing it to receive funding from EU funds, which has been stopped. Sweden is one of the leaders among countries that criticize the state of affairs in Hungary regarding the government and the law.
Orbán is now negotiating with the Swedes and trying to put pressure on them: demand the EU open these funds for Hungary, then we will accept your membership. In Hungary, there are problems with corruption and pressure on the media. Viktor Orbán has built a «soft Putinism» for himself. This was the case in Slovakia in the 1990s under Mečiar. When everything is controlled by the state and there can be no other opinion, those who disagree are monitored, restrictions are imposed, etc. Mechiyar was called Lukashenko on the Danube. Currently, Lukashenko is on the Danube in Orbán. Instead, with all those, everyone signed the conclusion that Ukraine will be in NATO.
Maryna Kovalchuk, Newssky’s own correspondent (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland), head of the V5 Media project, and deputy editor-in-chief, spoke.
