Former Ukrainian PM says security guarantees won’t work
- Former Ukrainian PM said Western security guarantees would be unworkable.
- Membership in Nato and the ability to implement article five is the only credible security, he said in a speech at RUSI on 2 October.
- Resilience is the main concern among European leaders at present as they seek to apply Ukrainian air defence solutions across the continent.
Describing his strategic vision for Europe at the Royal United Services Institute in London, the former prime minister of Ukraine, Arsenyiy Yatsenyuk, dismissed the offer of security guarantees by the West as unworkable.
There has been widespread speculation of what future negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, brokered by the United States, might look like over the past several months. Particularly as Russia’s summer offensive ebbs after Ukraine claims to have liberated 160 square kilometres around the strategic towns of Pokrovsk and Dobropillia in the Donetsk region.
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UK prime minister Keir Starmer and other allies in the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’ are committed to putting ‘boots on the ground’ in the form of a half-baked peace-keeping mission to bolster Ukraine’s security as part of any prospective settlement.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a notable security think tank in Washington DC, determined that the smallest such a force could be is around 6,000 military and civilian personnel based on past missions and troop density estimates.
However, Yatsenyuk was unconvinced: “I don’t trust in any kind of security guarantees except for Article 5 [of the Washington Treaty],” he confessed to his audience.
Yatsenyuk was sworn into office as Ukraine’s prime minister just days after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, which soon mutated into a full-scale invasion in February 2022. Yatsenyuk served in the position until 2016, in which time he implemented crucial reforms, weening the country off of Russian energy to introducing a visa-free travel regime with the European Union (EU).
Currently, Yatsenyuk heads the Open Ukraine Foundation, a think tank in Kyiv that promotes the victory of Ukraine, helps the Armed Forces, and develops public diplomacy and international cooperation.
In his speech, the former head of the cabinet recited an extensive list of poll figures among Ukrainian society indicating the political will for victory and the majority approval of Western institutions, namely the EU and Nato (86% and 76% respectively, he claimed).
This matters less, of course, as the real determinant for success, he acknowledged, is the will of European allies to provide Ukraine the resources it needs to defeat Russia. This war, he continued, should not be viewed in isolation as the fate of the West is intricately aligned with Ukraine’s success as recent European talks in Copenhagen demonstrated.
Resilience in Europe
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy peddled the need for security guarantees in discussions with European counterparts in Copenhagen on 1 October. Such measures should protect Ukraine on land, in the air, and at sea he said, without offering any further reflection on what this will look like in practice.
The gathering of European leaders comes after Russia is said to have launched drones into Poland and overtly violated Estonian airspace – two developments that Airforce Technology covered extensively. Yet, the main topic of discussion, besides financing the purchase of American weapons systems for Ukraine through the PURL initiative, was to build resilience across the continent against Russian hybrid activity.
Zelenskyy said Europe needs to collectively build an effective air defence system against enemy drones in what has been referred to as a continental Drone Wall.
“Our guys are already here in Denmark and there are experienced Ukrainians who know how to detect and shoot down attack drones,” Zelenskyy said to his counterparts. “They’ve already begun deploying their mission. And we are ready to share this experience with you, partners.”
To this end, the UK has already agreed to scale the production of Ukrainian interceptor drones under Project Octopus, while other allies, such as Denmark, have welcomed Ukrainian companies to produce systems in-country.
