Did NATO betray Ukraine: The unfulfilled promise of NATO membership

U.S. President Joe Biden has announced a $725 million weapons package for Ukraine; Italy and Germany have also pledged additional military support; UK PM Keir Starmer conceded that peace talks could end the Ukraine war.

It seems that the western world is truly rallying behind Ukraine. But the truth, is far from it.

U.S. and European aid to Ukraine

With the current leg of the Russia-Ukraine war in its third year, the eastern European country has been receiving tremendous amounts of aid. Highest contributors include the U.S. and European Union institutions including the EU Commission and Council.

Till April 2024, the United States had given $175 billion worth of aid. It is the first time since president Harry Truman’s post-World War II Marshall Plan, that a European country has held the top spot as U.S. aid recipient. While there are caveats within this including the fact that only 106 of the 175 billion is direct aid to Ukraine; the rest supports related U.S. activities, the amount of aid in itself is huge. The U.S. is also the biggest military aid provider to Ukraine, having provided almost $70 billion in the last two years.

The EU and its 27 member nations have provided a total of $133 billion and pledged another $54 billion, taking their contribution up to over $168 billion. This includes military, financial, humanitarian, and refugee assistance. It also includes assistance for reconstruction in the future.

Of the 168 billion, over $47 billion is military assistance. Germany, UK, and the Nordic countries have also made significant contributions to military assistance.

Aid as compensation for unfulfilled promises

But let us not be enamoured by the apparent large-heartedness indicated by these contributions.

While by themselves considerable, they hide one big – probably the biggest shortcoming.

Despite dangling NATO membership like a carrot in front of the war beleaguered Ukraine, NATO chair and members have time and again proven that the promise is just that. A promise. A mirage.

A finish line that grows farther away every passing day as the conflict escalates with both sides using increasingly advanced weaponry to attack and retaliate.

Time and again the Ukrainian president urges tangible progress on membership, and every single time, NATO members turn around and announce more aid, sidestepping the membership question.

While Ukraine earlier wanted to remain a neutral state, it changed its stance and started requesting NATO membership from the time it was first invaded by Russia in 2014. From 28 percent Ukrainians in support of joining NATO in 2012, public opinion shifted drastically by 2017 when 69 percent Ukrainians wanted to be a part of the alliance. In 2018, it added the goal of NATO membership in its Constitution in 2018.

NATO reaching out to Russia?

The Russia-NATO rivalry is also not new.

From the military blocs of the second world war, to Russia’s ‘betrayal theory’ regarding NATO in the early 90s, to allegations of Russia sabotaging communication cables in the Baltic sea less than a month ago… the examples are endless. What matters not is the extent of verifiability of NATO’s betrayal, but that Russia thinks that it did, by an eastward expansion.

However, NATO nations are reluctant to not only be directly involved and escalate the crisis further, but also, to accept Ukraine into their fold and seriously risk antagonising Russia.

President Putin also highlighted that the principal ground for the February 2022 invasion was Ukraine’s preliminary steps to joining NATO. What George Kennan – the architect of the ‘containment policy’ towards erstwhile Soviet Union – said in 1997 about a NATO expansion expected to ‘inflame Russian nationalistic, anti-western and militaristic tendencies’, clearly holds true even after over two decades.

Looking at the Russia-Ukraine war from the lens of Russia’s belief in NATO’s betrayal, as well as Ukraine’s, and its insistence on its own sphere of influence, it is plausible to argue that NATO’s reluctance to admit Ukraine into its fold despite western aid contributions, is a betrayal of its promises of support to Ukraine. It is the red line that NATO is not willing to cross.

But is it a signal to Russia for normalizing relations? The first direct conversation between the Russian president and the German chancellor Olaf Scholz in mid-November definitely points in that direction.