The Finlandization of Ukraine

Following the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, Turkey's Foreign Affairs achieved another global victory: a face-to-face meeting was held in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian committees. These two committees had met before. However, previous peace talks were held in secret locations or online, and negotiations would often hit a brick wall due to mutual opposition, with minimum global attention. This time, the two warring sides met in Istanbul. Hence, the world’s focus also turned to Istanbul. As a new and open platform, Istanbul was, in a sense, pushing the committees to present a more positive profile to the world than ever, and lead the negotiations to more tangible results. We must acknowledge that Ukraine took the initiative here. It was mostly members of the Ukrainian committee who were photographed following peace talks. They presented a proposal to the Russian side, which can be summarized under a few bold headlines. Yet, Russian authorities preferred to remain rather passive. They sufficed by stating that they would convey the proposal to Moscow, and present it to Russian President Vladimir Putin for evaluation.

Ukraine’s proposal seems to have adopted the neutrality doctrine it was asked to accept. This means that Ukraine officially no longer has an aim or objective to join NATO. We can evaluate the new doctrine at first blush as Ukraine’s Finlandization. Ukraine’s compliance with these terms might be considered a triumph on Russia’s behalf. However, careful consideration of the fine details of the proposal will prove this claim wrong.

First, we know that the object to join NATO is a provision stipulated in Ukraine’s constitution. In this case, the matter clearly necessitates a constitutional change. This is possible solely through a referendum. According to statements by Ukrainian delegates, Russia must back down from its military intervention and withdraw its forces. It would be fanciful to expect Russia to accept this.

Assuming that Russia accepts this offer and withdraws its forces from Ukraine, what will happen if the referendum results are contrary to Russia’s expectations? In other words, if the Ukrainian public says, “No, we object to this change. We are keen and determined to join NATO,” will Russia launch a new military operation from scratch? Will it reoccupy the areas it had captured, but abandoned for the sake of the referendum? Wouldn't the Russian public question Putin then, asking him what he was thinking? It is foolish to think that Putin would not consider this and “take the bait.”

Furthermore, the Ukrainian side is stipulating another condition to adopt a status of neutrality: Ukraine’s security. It is seeking to secure this through a “system of guarantors.” It wants to see a series of states, almost all of them NATO members, including Turkey, as guarantors of its security. The U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Poland, and Israel are the other countries on this list. Israel is the only non-NATO-member state among them.

Briefly, Ukraine is saying, “I won't be joining NATO, NATO will be joining me.” It is rather unlikely to think that Ukraine is blind enough not to see Russia’s dirty trick.

Ukraine demands that Russia accepts Ukraine becoming an EU member in exchange for it giving up on its aspirations to join NATO. This might seem reasonable at first glance. The EU is simply an economic and political union. What danger could it pose? Sure, the EU started as an economic union. It later evolved into a political union. The next step was to become a legal union, but it failed. If it had managed to achieve this, it would have positioned itself more convincingly with peaceful ideals outside the military plane. But it didn't happen. As a matter of fact, the EU started pursuing a strategic transformation before overcoming the traumas resulting from the disappointment of the third stage’s failure. The ideal to form a union of political-economic and legal ideals, which is the origin of the EU, started to be replaced with talk such as establishing a European Army, PESCO, etc. The Union soon changed from being a moral ideal into a platform where realpolitik and machtpolitik plans were made. Several sources have evaluated this as France’s neo-Gaullist fantasy. Germany, for its part, prefers to remain mum due to the shame and prohibitions of World War II. Or, perhaps, it is underhandedly endorsing the “outspoken” France taking the lead. 

Yes, Ukraine was a golden opportunity for NATO to show off its power. But it backfired: this process fully revealed NATO’s defects and shortcomings. Germany took the decision to beef up its defense budget to $100 billion. This dynamic might progress further in the upcoming days. What may become of the European Army and NATO relations remains uncertain, but we are now able to discern that the EU is closer now than ever to establish an army. So, can we project that Russia will skip this dynamic and easily be persuaded of Ukraine's EU membership?

In brief, there's still a lot more room for discussion regarding Ukraine and impartiality.