Ukraine’s Continuing Fight for Freedom

Independence Day in Ukraine falls on August 24^th each year. Today marks the 31^st anniversary of when Ukraine voted to break with the former Soviet Union. It also falls exactly six months into a lethal war with Russia. The day was marred by explosions, death, and more destruction inside Ukraine as Russian forces bombed a train station killing at least 22 individuals and the day is not yet over in Ukraine. In an emotional speech deliver by President Volodymyr Zelensky, he called for Ukrainians to fight for their freedom rather than simply voting for it at the ballot box. “A new nation emerged on February 24 at 4 am. Not born, but reborn. A nation that didn’t cry, didn’t scream, didn’t get scared. Didn’t run away. Didn’t give up. Didn’t forget,” he said.

Although Putin is fighting a protracted war on the Russia’s western border area in Ukraine, all is not quiet on Russia’s eastern front. Just one day prior to Ukraine’s Independence Day Russia sailed 14 of its Navy ships through the La Perouse Strait from the Western Pacific Ocean into the Sea of Japan, according to Dzirhan Mahadzir of USNI News. The move was designed to unnerve Japan. The La Perouse Strait is an international waterway dividing Russia’s Sakhalin island from Japan’s Hokkaido island. The ships included a destroyer, fast attack craft, missile range instrumentation and hospital ships, among others. According to Japan’s Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, Japan asked Russia late last month not to traverse the waterway in anticipation of the Vostok-2022 strategic military exercise that runs from August 30 to September 5. Russia didn’t listen.

Back home in Moscow, Putin’s disinformation forces are hard at work creating a monkeypox narrative, in a reprise of the previous campaign to link the Covid virus to alleged US biolab operations. Foreign Policy magazine’s Ivana Stradner reports that “Russian Duma Deputy Chair Irina Yarovaya echoed the Kremlin’s latest conspiracy theory earlier this month when she called on the World Health Organization to lead an investigation into “the secrets of the US military biolaboratories.” Stradner calls it a “textbook Kremlin information operation.”

East, west, or inside the Russian Federation, Putin is not letting up or bypassing any opportunity to destabilize the global environment. What concerns several military analysts in Washington more than Russia’s flotilla off Japan or its recent disinformation campaigns is the possibility that Putin could decide to damage the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant located only four miles from the city of Nikopol in southern Ukraine. On March 4 Russian military forces captured the plant and have held it since that time. UN Secretary-General António Guterres earlier this month said: “Any attack to nuclear plants is … suicidal,” and called for the plant to be demilitarized. Of the 11,000 regularly employed at the facility, 1,100 have been taken hostage by Russian forces. Ukrainian engineers are being tortured and forced to work at gunpoint to keep the operation running according to Petro Kotin, president of Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear power utility. It appears that Putin intends to remove the power plant from Ukraine’s electric grid in an attempt to further destroy the country. It delivers 50% of Ukraine’s power requirements and is the largest plant in Europe.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken says that Putin is using the plant strategically as a form of protection — shielding troops, weapons and ammunition. And, in doing this, Russia has stopped Ukraine from damaging its stock and soldiers on the assumption that an attack would cause a meltdown or nuclear disaster. “Of course the Ukrainians cannot fire back lest there be a terrible accident involving the nuclear plant,”, adding that Russia isn’t creating a “human shield,” but rather a “nuclear shield.” Earlier this week, Rafael Grossi, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is under the UN, urged Ukraine and Russia to allow experts to visit the site in an effort to prevent a nuclear accident. The IAEA reports it was told it could visit the plant “within the next few days” if the talks succeed. If the political-military situation is not stabilized and an errant shell hits the plant, it could result in a major leak of radioactive material. Once released into the atmosphere it could contaminate a wide swath of Europe, including Poland, with a population of over 38 million. In May the BBC posed the question, what does Vladimir Putin want? Today the question has morphed into what is he going to do next?

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.