The Kremlin had justified the present war in part with reference to the supposed encirclement of Russia by Nato. In taking that issue out of the equation, Ukraine has also removed one of the purported grounds for the war, making it more difficult for the Kremlin to resist the calls for a ceasefire. And Zelensky’s first priority must be to end the violence, given the immense suffering of the population.
In fact, Russia promptly made at least a show of reciprocating Ukraine’s constructive move, claiming that it would reduce its military operations in the west of Ukraine in response.
In one sense, the offer of neutrality is not really a very substantive concession. At its Bucharest summit of 2008, Nato had promised eventual admission to Ukraine. But in truth, in more recent years membership was not actually on the cards.
Still, Zelensky’s offer represents an important symbolic concession. It deviates from the principle of sovereign equality of states, and from their freedom of choice in their foreign policy guaranteed by international law. This includes the choice of alliances.
Moreover, the offer is hedged. Instead of Nato membership, Ukraine is demanding more effective security guarantees than those provided in the ill-fated Budapest Memorandum of 1994.
In that document, Russia had pledged never to use force against Ukraine after Kyiv agreed to surrender the nuclear weapons inherited from the former Soviet Union. An infraction would be reported to the UN Security Council. But that body turned out to be impotent in view of Moscow’s veto when Russia took Crimea in 2014, and now, when Ukraine suffered a massive invasion.
Crafting more effective security guarantees will not be easy. Kyiv is hoping for a binding pledge of its defence by a set of guarantor states, which may include Poland, Israel, Canada, Turkey and perhaps the US and UK. This raises two questions.
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