Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to Washington Post journalists in Kyiv on May 1, 2023. (Ed Ram/The Washington Post)
Zelenskyy’s ‘guilt-based’ diplomacy leaves its mark on NATO summit
On the first day, there was dismay and disgruntlement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy launched an angry tirade on social media, calling NATO’s failure to give Ukraine a formal invitation or clear timeline for joining the alliance absurd.
The outburst took some Western and NATO officials by surprise, as their Ukrainian counterparts had long known that an immediate invitation would not come while the country was at war with Russian invaders. It threatened to upset the spirit of unity that NATO leaders hoped to convey as they gathered in Vilnius, Lithuania.
On the second day, there was mollification. President Joe Biden and the assembled leaders of the Group of Seven nations and NATO countries, put forward full-throated declarations of support for Ukraine. While Kyiv received no guarantees regarding a timeline to NATO membership, it did gather significant promises of major military assistance, both to help it repel Russian troops in its territories now, and to secure its defense in the long term.
In a speech at Vilnius University, Biden hailed the newfound resolve and purpose of NATO, which, in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, is expanding operations on eastern frontiers. “If I sound optimistic, it’s because I am,” Biden told the crowd before later embarking on a trip to Finland, the alliance’s newest member. The U.S. president called NATO “stronger, more energized” and “more united,” before telling crowds the alliance is “vital to our shared future.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda, whose country has pushed for swifter and more all-encompassing support for Ukraine, told reporters that Western governments had raised Ukrainian expectations before the summit. Nevertheless, Duda said the summit ended by “undoubtedly bringing Ukraine closer to NATO.”
Zelenskyy appeared satisfied as the summit concluded. Though the outcome was not the most “ideal,” he said it marked a meaningful success for Ukraine, and he thanked NATO leaders for their “very practical and unprecedented support.”
There is a clear pattern in Zelenskyy’s behavior: Ever since he found himself in the unenviable position of leading his nation’s desperate fight for survival, he has made demand after demand to the outside world for financial help, political support and, most importantly, weapons. Those calls, framed often as reminders of the sacrifices that Ukraine’s fighters are making on the front lines, have yielded a steady drumbeat of deliveries — including ammunition, powerful artillery, armored vehicles, antiaircraft capabilities, tanks, fighter jets and more. The latest clamor has been for more long-range missile systems to target Russian positions within Ukraine.
Jeremy Shapiro, director of research at the European Council on Foreign Relations, quipped that Zelenskyy has adopted “a guilt-based approach to diplomacy” that he likened to his Jewish grandmother, “the former grandmaster of the technique.”
“’You never write, you never call, you never send F-16s’ has long summarized (Zelenskyy’s) approach to getting what he wants from the West and the U.S.,” Shapiro told me.
Western officials, on the whole, have publicly maintained firm support for Ukraine in its war effort, but in private, some express concern over the incessant nature of the Ukrainian demands and the capacity of NATO governments to fulfill them indefinitely. That friction could be detected in the controversial admission of British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, who at a sideline event during the summit said “whether we like it or not, people want to see a bit of gratitude” for the contributions made to Ukraine’s defense. He indicated that this was a sentiment already conveyed to his Ukrainian counterparts in Kyiv: “I told them that last year, when I drove 11 hours to be given a list, that I’m not like Amazon.”
At a separate forum in Vilnius, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan responded with his own pointed remarks to a question from a Ukrainian activist challenging Biden’s caution on Kyiv’s NATO bid. “I think the American people do deserve a degree of gratitude from the United States government for their willingness to step up and from the rest of the world as well,” Sullivan said, gesturing to the more than $40 billion and counting in U.S. taxpayer funds diverted to arm Ukraine.
“It is unusual in the annals of human affairs to see such large contributions — many tens of billions of dollars and some of the most advanced weapons in the world — to a war in which the U.S. at least has little directly at stake,” Shapiro said. “It is perhaps unprecedented when you consider that those contributions contain a genuine, if unmeasurable, risk of starting a direct war with a country with the world’s largest nuclear stockpile,” he added, referring to Russia.
Biden administration officials believe it is impossible to confer NATO membership on Ukraine in the middle of the ongoing war. Ukraine joining the alliance now would plunge all NATO countries directly into conflict with Russia, given the treaty obligations binding the alliance. Moreover, NATO membership for Ukraine requires a set of political reforms that the country has yet to fully carry out. Kyiv’s integration into the military alliance as well as the European Union will be painstaking and complex. All NATO “members now agree that Ukraine’s future is in NATO, but that still doesn’t make it an inevitability,” Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told me.
While many analysts and boosters of Ukraine’s cause are dissatisfied with the outcome of the Vilnius summit, the upshot is that it is hardly a redux of what took place 15 years ago in Bucharest, Romania, when NATO left Ukraine and Georgia twisting in the wind over potential future membership bids. A river of NATO steel is bolstering Ukraine’s current counteroffensive to retake territories lost to Russian forces, while NATO officials agreed to let Ukraine skip a multistep “membership action plan,” which may accelerate a future accession process. Western governments are preparing major long-term packages for Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction and recovery.
Shortly after the G-7 declaration of support in Vilnius was made public, Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, spoke at a think-tank event in Washington.
“This is the moment when we say thank you,” Marakova said. “But we need more.”
