The creation of a Ukrainian-Polish-Lithuanian peacekeeping brigade is an attempt by the West to woo former post-Soviet countries while not formally admitting them to NATO, a Russian analyst said Tuesday.
The Ukrainian, Polish and Lithuanian defense ministers on Monday signed a letter stating their plans to form a joint peacekeeping brigade, LitPolUkrBrig.
Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, said "the Europeans and Americans do not want to alienate Ukraine, Georgia and other countries, and they are looking for options intended to symbolize engagement" now that the issue of their admission to NATO has been frozen.
Polish Deputy Defense Minister Stanislaw Komorowski annouced the creation of a joint brigade at the seventh Informal High-Level NATO-Ukraine consultations with the participation of defense ministers and other senior officials from Ukraine and NATO countries.
"We have signed a letter spelling out our plans to form a Ukrainian-Polish-Lithuanian brigade. Lithuanian Defense Minister Rasa Jukneviciene, Polish Defense Minister Stanislaw Komarowski and I have signed it," Ukraine's acting defense minister, Valeriy Ivaschenko, told the media in Brussels.
Media reports said other countries were free to join the trilateral agreement.
"It is a kind of military analogue of Eastern Partnership in the trade and economic sphere," Lukyanov said. "This brigade is an attempt to show, 'we cannot admit you to NATO, but we remember you.'"
"Such organizations tie the Ukrainian elite even closer to all sorts of Euro-Atlantic structures," he said.
Ukraine has been pursuing NATO membership since pro-Western Yushchenko was inaugurated in January 2005.
Ukraine and Georgia's NATO bids were strongly backed by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, but were turned down due to pressure from Germany and France at a 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest.
However, NATO has stated that the two countries will join at an unspecified date in the future.
Both countries have also been included in the alliance's Partnership for Peace program, aimed at allowing "partner countries to build up an individual relationship with NATO, choosing their own priorities for cooperation."
MOSCOW, November 17 (RIA Novosti)
