As NATO member states try to reach an agreement on Ukraine’s accession at a summit in Vilnius, the previous meeting of the alliance’s leaders 15 years ago in Bucharest still casts a long shadow over the debate and causes controversy, Reuters reports, citing News.ro.

At a summit in Bucharest in April 2008, NATO announced that Ukraine and Georgia would join the US-led defense military alliance, but did not offer them any concrete plan or prospects for getting there. The statement by NATO leaders at the time reflected the differences that existed at the time between the United States, which wanted to host both countries, and France and Germany, which feared it would antagonize Russia.

While it may have been a brilliant diplomatic compromise, some analysts believe it was the worst of both worlds: Moscow was told that the two countries it once ruled as part of the Soviet Union would join NATO, but they didn’t come close. protection that membership will provide.

Now President Volodymyr Zelensky is pressuring NATO to explain how and when Ukraine can join after the end of the war sparked by the Russian invasion.

Once again, there are differences in NATO. And officials often refer to the Bucharest Declaration as a guide.

There is broad agreement that NATO should go “beyond Bucharest” and not simply confirm that Ukraine will join the alliance one day. But there are also significant differences in how far to go.

This time, the United States and Germany were the most reluctant to support anything that could be considered an invitation or automatic membership process. Meanwhile, NATO’s eastern European members, who have spent decades under Moscow’s control over the past century, are pushing for a clear road map for Kyiv, and now there is some support from France.

Although Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba announced on Monday that a number of formal conditions for membership had been lifted, the Vilnius Declaration will inevitably be another compromise. Claims that “Ukraine has a rightful place in NATO” and that it will join “when conditions permit” are among the phrases under discussion, diplomats say, as officials try to find wording acceptable to all 31 members of the alliance.NATO. It is quite possible that, as in Bucharest, the solution to the problem will be placed on the shoulders of the leaders.

Many observers drew parallels with the 2008 summit, which took place in the massive Palace of Parliament, which was run by Romanian communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Reuters noted. Orysia Lutsevich, an expert on Ukrainian politics at the Chatham House think tank, said that Zelenskyi and his advisers this time worked to ensure the most unequivocal result for Kyiv. “The Bucharest summit left an unpleasant aftertaste and actually created a strategic ambiguity: a permanent NATO waiting room for Ukraine and Georgia,” she emphasizes.

Pressure from Putin

A lot has changed since 2008, but one thing remains unchanged: Vladimir Putin.

In 2008, in Bucharest, the Russian leader personally pressured the leaders not to introduce Ukraine and Georgia into NATO.

This time, Zelenskyi has the opportunity to speak in person. But Russia will continue to be an important factor in the discussions.

At the heart of all these debates is the question of whether NATO would be ready to defend Ukraine against Russia, provoking a direct conflict between the nuclear powers. To date, all Western military support for Kyiv comes from individual member states, not from the transatlantic alliance as a whole.

Eastern European countries say the best way to ensure that Russia will not attack Ukraine again is to bring Kyiv immediately after the war under the umbrella of collective security that accompanies NATO membership. These countries emphasize that the wording of the Bucharest Declaration did not matter much in terms of Putin’s long-term intentions.

But others argue that Ukraine’s promise to join NATO after the war could encourage Putin to continue the conflict. He said that the declaration from Bucharest actually forced Putin to conduct military tests of the West both in Ukraine and in Georgia. Four months after the summit, Russian-backed bombings in Georgia’s separatist region of South Ossetia prompted the pro-Western government in Tbilisi to send the army there. It was quickly defeated by the Russian invasion forces, thus strengthening Moscow’s control over part of Georgia. Then, in 2014, Russia took Crimea from Ukraine by force and supported separatist uprisings in Donbas in eastern Ukraine. And last February, Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

For its part, Moscow claims that the Bucharest Declaration showed that NATO is a threat to Russia.

But Ukraine says that NATO made a promise and now it must fulfill it.

“Whether or not it was the right decision in 2008, we can put it aside and just say that it still has a really symbolic meaning,” said Timothy Sale, a University of Toronto professor and author of a book on the history. NATO.. “Diplomats must remind leaders that what NATO says or writes in its messages has long-term significance and can generate unexpected commitments,” the professor emphasizes.

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