Ukraine Will Never Get NATO Membership, Only US Support as 'Anti-Russian Hedgehog'
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A leading Russian foreign policy expert told Sputnik on Friday that despite Kiev’s desires to be welcomed into the Western anti-Russian bloc, the NATO powers only ever intend to use the new "ally" as a bulwark in their struggle against Russia and will never treat Ukraine as an equal.
The government in Kiev has continued to pressure the Western NATO alliance to give the country firmer pledges of support, including security guarantees and entry into the alliance. At its summit last month in Vilnius, the NATO powers swore off allowing Ukrainian membership while the conflict with Russia rages, over fears of the 31-nation alliance being drawn into a direct war with Russia that would include four nuclear-armed nations.
Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for European and International Studies at Russia’s Higher School of Economics and deputy director of research at the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, told Sputnik on Friday that in fact NATO will never let Kiev into the alliance, since it only intends to use Ukraine as "an instrument" toward the US strategic goal of weakening and dismantling Russia.
"Obviously, at one point the United States promised that Ukraine will join NATO after the end of the war in Ukraine, but the United States is not ready to provide such assurances and such guarantees," Suslov said.
“The United States wants to avoid any obligations that could bring the United States into open military conflict with Russia. So by security guarantees, the United States means and implies the obligation to provide military assistance to Ukraine in the longer term, especially after the end of the war in Ukraine, beyond the military conflict itself. The idea is actually to turn Ukraine into a military hedgehog to provide military assistance, weapons training for Ukrainian troops, intel information in order to increase Ukrainian military strength up to the point that Russia would not dare to invade Ukraine. And if Russia does, then Ukraine will be able to repel and defeat Russia without the direct involvement of the United States.”
“That's basically what the United States means by security guarantees to Ukraine. This generally is the so-called Israel model. It works between the United States and Israel. I mean, there is no legally binding treaty between the United States and Israel that would compel the United States to join a battle between Israel and Israeli neighbors if there is a war, but the United States provides substantial military help to Israel.”
“Of course, the United States will not provide Ukraine with a military advantage, with a military edge over Russia, but basically the idea is to militarize Ukraine more and to continue militarization of Ukraine after the end of the hot war.”
Suslov added that giving Ukraine that kind of long-term military assistance prevents a political resolution of the crisis because it’s directly contrary to Russia’s security demands that it articulated before the conflict began in February 2022.
"One of the basic Russian conditions is the demilitarization of Ukraine and an official Ukrainian security rejection of Ukrainian NATO membership aspirations and promises that Ukraine will someday join NATO. And the security assistance that the United States provides to Ukraine is absolutely contrary to those Russian demands, is contrary to the demand of demilitarization. And the United States is not willing to repeal the NATO promise to Ukraine," he said.
The policy expert noted that the US’ plans for a long-term military assistance memorandum with Kiev “de-incentivizes” Russia seeking to end the conflict since Moscow is compelled to oppose such an arrangement.
“Because, of course, turning Ukraine into an even more militarized anti-Russian [country] is absolutely unacceptable for Russia,” he said.
“It is absolutely clear that the United States refuses to take Russian security interests into consideration. They didn't want to do it before, back in November-December 2021, when Russia formulated the security guarantees demands for Russia. And of course the United States does not want to take Russian security concerns seriously now because they're interested in the directly opposite thing. They are interested in the continuation of the hybrid war against Russia in order to weaken Russia up to the point when Russia is no longer a great power,” he explained.
“Some people in the United States want a dismantling of Russia and a regime change, others want just a drastic weakening of the country. And the US perceives it as a means to reestablish their global hegemony, to strengthen their positions in their confrontation against China and so on and so forth. I mean, it is very important to understand that the United States does not want peace or a stable security system in Europe. They want strengthening and restoration of their hegemony, which implies a confrontation against Russia, a weakening of Russia. And Ukraine is used just as an instrument for that.”
“I think that in the next several years, the West will not be ready to consider the idea of Ukrainian neutrality seriously, because if they do, it would mean that they are ready to reverse their policy, that they are ready to consider Russian security interests seriously and to resolve the crisis and to normalize their relations with Russia, which is absolutely contrary to their intentions. As I already said, their intention is continuation of a hybrid war against Russia in order either to defeat it or to weaken it drastically.”
