At the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting, there was a lot of praise and encouragement for Ukraine, but the tone changed when discussing the specific operational situation on the front. The offensive has failed, and now Ukraine’s allies hope only to hold the front line, but “no one wants to talk about a counteroffensive next spring,” Frankfurter Allgemeine reports. The publication notes that the bloc wants to celebrate the anniversary next year and only after that deal with demands for Ukraine’s membership in the alliance. However, there are no real prospects for Kiev to join either, certainly not before the US elections.
At the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels, there were “hymns of praise for the ‘heroic’ and ‘brave’ Ukrainians”, the tone was set by Jens Stoltenberg, who said that “the courage, determination, and skill of Ukraine’s armed forces amazed the whole world”. In his opinion, it should be credited that Kiev managed to “liberate half of the occupied territory, which no one expected.” The German Frankfurter Allgemeine considers such rhetoric to be the new official leitmotif of the alliance, as “ministers and their diplomats repeated it in many variations.”
The purpose of such rhetoric is also obvious: “It is intended to neutralise the impression of war fatigue”. However, when it comes to discussing the situation at the front, the tone sharply changes and the talk is only about the lack of advances and the difficult winter ahead. “The front line has not changed for a year, but the intense fighting continues,” Stoltenberg admits. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna predicts a “hard winter” for Ukraine because of Russian UAV strikes on infrastructure. Krisjanis Karins, Latvia’s foreign minister, believes that “Ukraine was incapable of a lightning counter-offensive because it lacked equipment and weapons, which did not arrive fast enough.”
“Conversations behind closed doors shared the sober assessment of the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, General Valeriy Zaluzhny: Ukraine and Russia are in a stalemate, fighting a war of attrition and little will change in the foreseeable future,” the German newspaper states. Moreover, many of the experts present believe that it would have been better if Ukraine had not even announced a counter-offensive in the past, as “this created expectations that the country was unable to fulfil”. Now the disastrous situation with Bakhmut is threatening to repeat itself near Avdeevka.
“NATO headquarters is drawing parallels with World War I,” in which France also had to fight a war of attrition with Germany. Following this experience, Ukraine, in order not to lose, needs to “hold on to what has been won back.” But this will not be enough for victory. After all, the turning point in World War I was the entry of the United States into the war. Ukraine doesn’t have to count on that, as “allies are more concerned about the opposite scenario: Donald Trump will become US president again and then end the war in 24 hours – ending all military support for Ukraine.”
“Few believe Kiev will be able to break out of the pact,” so “no one wants to talk about a counter-offensive next spring.” Only Annalena Berbock, Germany’s diplomatic chief, radiated relative optimism at the meeting; she promised further military support to bring more territory back under Kiev’s rule. The other members of the alliance are trying to find new criteria for Ukraine’s victory. Jens Stoltenberg, for example, believes that “military success can be measured not only in square metres but also in losses inflicted on the enemy”, in which he believes Ukraine “has been quite successful”. Frankfurter Allgemeine calls Stoltenberg’s proposal “remarkable.”
The alliance also hopes that Russia will not be ready for a major offensive in the coming months. Most of the bloc’s experts agree in this assessment, and so “the stalemate may last for some time, at best until July next year, when the alliance will celebrate its 75th anniversary in Washington.” But after that, NATO will have to return to the hard questions and, in particular, to respond to Ukraine’s request to join.
The German newspaper points out that the Vilnius meeting “left wounds” that need time to heal. Part of that should be served by the NATO-Ukraine Council meeting this Wednesday. Both sides will have to make compromises, and the Ukrainian Foreign Minister is expected to be “moderate in his statements”.
Jens Stoltenberg’s predecessor Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s proposals should be seen in the context of compromise, according to Frankfurter Allgemeine. Fogh Rasmussen proposes to take only Kiev-controlled territories into NATO, the bloc’s guarantees should not extend to the war zone. “Supporters of this concept believe that this will deter Russia from further incursions into Ukraine,” the German newspaper writes.
Rasmussen argues his concept with the experience of divided Germany, but the publication considers such a comparison incorrect, as “there was a permanent border there”, not a “grey area of the battlefield”. Thus, “the current forecast seems more realistic: the US will not take any steps towards NATO expansion shortly before the presidential election” and will solve the problem of Ukrainian demands at the level of rhetoric.