The G7 countries signed a security agreement today. In practice, industrialized countries promise to continue military support for Ukraine.
Ukraine did not receive an invitation to NATO or the security guarantees it longed for at the NATO summit in Vilnius.
This got the president to Volodymyr Zelensky already started yesterday.
Instead, a symbolic Ukraine-NATO Council and a simpler membership path were offered.
However, the main focus of the Vilnius meeting has been the promised material support for Ukraine, according to the Visiting Researcher of the Alexander Institute Ilmari Käihkö.
This material support is reinforced by the world’s largest Western economies, the G7 countries, which today signed a security agreement with the EU to support Ukraine.
The G7 countries promise, among other things, modern defense material, training and the sharing of intelligence information. That is, largely the same things that Ukraine has received until now.
In return, Ukraine commits to administrative reforms, such as increasing transparency.
– Promises are of course extremely important for Ukraine, but they will not solve Ukraine’s security situation in the long term, Käihkö says to .
The security promises of the G7 countries do not include security guarantees. The support is referred to in English with the term “security assurance”, which could be translated as security promises. Security guarantees, on the other hand, mean a promise to defend Ukraine militarily.
This readiness has not existed in NATO. The United States and Germany in particular have reacted with reservations, while the countries of Eastern Europe have demanded security guarantees.
If NATO security guarantees were granted to Ukraine now, the initiative would pass to Russia. If Russia decided to continue the attack in Ukraine, NATO would be faced with a difficult choice. Either it would have to participate in the war or it would lose its credibility. We don’t want to take this risk, Käihkö sums up.
However, according to the researcher, in the long term NATO membership is the only guarantee for Ukraine’s security.
Zelenskyi was also on the same lines, who today already praised NATO cooperation and the security promises of the G7 countries.
– The best guarantee for Ukraine is to belong to NATO, Zelenskyi emphasized.
A response to Russia’s fatigue tactics
According to Käihkö, what is significant about the security promise of the G7 countries is its long-term nature.
– Russia has calculated that, being bigger than Ukraine, it will be able to tire both us and eventually Ukraine as well.
The best response to the strategy is to make credible security promises of long-term support for Ukraine. The purpose is to convince Russian decision-makers that the fatigue strategy does not work. Russia is still not convinced of that, and therefore the credibility of the promises is key, Käihkö states.
– After all, our decision-making in the countries that support Ukraine has been quite reactive. It may have caused such hopes in Russia that Russia can win the war by continuing it as long as possible.
The threat remains that at some point the West will tire of supporting Ukraine. Another danger is possible changes of power, which can change the political direction greatly. In particular, vital US support to Ukraine could be shaken if the Republicans win the next election.
– Of course, the agreements do not prevent countries from slipping from supporting Ukraine, but they make it more difficult, says Käihkö.
Russia already said it opposes the security agreement.
Sources: AFP, Reuters