Ukraine Won't Stave off Russia Unless NATO Membership or Given Nukes: Estonian FM

NATO says the door is open for Ukraine membership, but it does not want to go to war with Russia.

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Urmas Reinsalu, the Estonian foreign minister, said in an interview published Thursday that Ukraine either needs to join NATO after the war or receive nuclear weapons if there’s any hope in co-exiting with Russia in the future.

Reinsalu brushed off the idea that France, the UK, and Germany could provide Kyiv with a “half-NATO” security agreement after the war.

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“Honestly, the only guarantee except NATO would be to deliver nuclear weapons to Ukraine,” he told Newsweek, theorizing. He said it would almost be impossible to consider a post-Ukraine War world without Kyiv benefiting from NATO’s Article 5 protection, which means an attack on one is an attack on all.

He said Ukraine would otherwise be stuck in a “hedgehog” self-defense strategy, like the “Wild West, standing in their fort with rifles and waiting for Russia.”

“I think it will create a grey zone in the midst of Europe. It would be a grand negative signal on their aspirations towards the European Union, from the security perspective, about investment assurances, and everything else,” he said.

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TRENDPOST: Jens Stoltenberg, the head of NATO, said Tuesday that Ukraine will eventually become a member of the alliance, but should be taken as “a long-term perspective.”

A very, very, very long-term “perspective.”

Last September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, announced that Kyiv filed a new, expedited application to join NATO in light of Russian President Vladimir Putin annexing four occupied regions in the country.

NATO’s head Jens Stoltenberg and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen held a press briefing earlier this year. Stoltenberg noted before the invasion that Ukraine was not protected by Article 5.

Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said it was not the right time. NATO is not interested in taking on Ukraine as a member, and every thinking person knows this, so it is unclear why the Alliance is grandstanding on the matter. The Ukraine War showed why. These countries do not have the militaries needed to take on Russia.

Stoltenberg, who has been a major advocate for the war, has said in the past that Ukraine is a NATO partner, not an ally…especially when Russia was amassing troops on the border.

Long forgotten was the U.S. and NATO’S pledge not to expand into Eastern Europe following the deal made during the 1990 negotiations between the West and the Soviet Union over German unification.

Therefore, in the view of Russia, it is taking self-defense actions to protect itself from NATO’s eastward march. 

As detailed in The Los Angeles Times back in May of 2016, while the U.S. and NATO deny that no such agreement was struck, “…hundreds of memos, meeting minutes and transcripts from U.S. archives indicate otherwise.” 

The article states: 

“According to transcripts of meetings in Moscow on Feb. 9, then-Secretary of State James Baker suggested that in exchange for cooperation with Germany, the U.S. could make ‘iron-clad guarantees’ that NATO would not expand ‘one inch eastward.’ Less than a week later, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to begin reunification talks. 

“No formal deal was struck, but from all the evidence, the quid pro quo was clear: Gorbachev acceded to Germany’s western alignment and the U.S. would limit NATO’s expansion.” 

TRENDPOST: Ever since the Ukraine invasion, some of the weakest countries have had the biggest mouths about how they, by uniting, could defeat Russia. 

Kyiv would have been forced to negotiate with Moscow if not for the scores of billions in weapons and financing from the West, but instead, these politicians continue making claims that they will reclaim every inch of land in the claws of Russia. Satellite countries like Lithuania and Latvia, who benefit from NATO’s Article 5, don’t even mention peace.

Kaja Kallas, the Prime Minister from Estonia, said last summer that calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine were premature. She pointed to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its military action in Georgia in 2008 as evidence that it will continue its land grab.

“We cannot make that mistake again. We have to be prepared for a long war,” she said, according to the FT.

She said she is “very worried about premature calls for a ceasefire because peace doesn’t mean an end to [Russian] atrocities in occupied territory.”

That’s tough talk from a leader whose military ranks 108 out of 142 in world military ranking, according to the 2022 Global Firepower Review. (The U.S. is ranked first and Russia second.)

The Biden administration has failed at every turn when it comes to Ukraine, from refusing to negotiate in earnest before the conflict to its blind support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 

The New York Times reported last summer that officials inside the Pentagon are voicing concerns that they do not have a clear picture about Ukraine’s military effort and they actually know more about Russia’s failures than Ukraine’s.

Beth Sanner, a former senior intelligence official, told the paper: “How much do we really know about how Ukraine is doing?”

“Can you find a person who will tell you with confidence how many troops has Ukraine lost, how many pieces of equipment has Ukraine lost?” she asked.