US President Joe Biden announced a $725 million arms package to Ukraine. Italy and Germany also pledged additional military support. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has acknowledged that peace talks can end the war in Ukraine.
The Western world really seems to be rallying behind Ukraine. However, the truth is far from that.
U.S. and European support for Ukraine
The Russia-Ukraine war is now in its third year, with the Eastern European country receiving huge amounts of aid. The largest contributors are the United States and European Union institutions, including the European Commission and Council.
By April 2024, the United States had provided $175 billion worth of aid. This is the first time since President Harry Truman’s Marshall Plan after World War II that a European country has remained the top recipient of U.S. aid. There are some caveats to this, including the fact that only $106 of the $175 billion in direct aid went to Ukraine. The remainder is to support related activities in the United States, and the amount of aid itself is huge. The United States is also Ukraine’s largest provider of military aid, providing about $70 billion over the past two years.
The EU and its 27 member states provided a total of $133 billion and pledged a further $54 billion, bringing the total to over $168 billion. This includes military, financial, humanitarian and refugee assistance. It also includes future reconstruction assistance.
Of the $168 billion, more than $47 billion is military aid. Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Nordic countries have also made significant contributions to military aid.
Aid in compensation for unfulfilled promises
But let’s not get carried away by the apparent generosity shown by these contributions.
While important in their own right, they hide one major drawback, perhaps the biggest one.
Time and time again, the NATO chairman and member states have proven that their promises are just that, even as NATO members dangle like carrots in front of war-stricken Ukraine. It’s a promise. mirage.
As the conflict intensifies, with both sides using increasingly advanced weapons to attack and retaliate, the finish line moves further and further away with each passing day.
Ukraine’s president repeatedly urges concrete progress on membership, but each time NATO members change direction and announce additional aid, avoiding the question of membership.
Ukraine previously wanted to remain a neutral country, but after it was first invaded by Russia in 2014, it changed its stance and began demanding NATO membership. In 2012, 28% of Ukrainians supported NATO membership, but by 2017 public opinion had changed dramatically. 69% of Ukrainians wanted to join the alliance. In 2018, the goal of joining NATO in 2018 was added to the constitution.
Will NATO reach out to Russia?
The conflict between Russia and NATO is also not new.
From military blocs in World War II, to Russia’s “betrayal theory” about NATO in the early 90s, to allegations that Russia sabotaged Baltic communication cables less than a month ago…the examples are endless. There’s no time left. What matters is not the verifiable extent of NATO’s betrayal, but rather the extent to which Russia believes it has betrayed it by expanding eastward.
However, NATO countries are not only reluctant to further escalate the crisis through direct involvement, but also unwilling to accept Ukraine into their fold and risk antagonizing Russia.
Putin also emphasized that the main rationale for the February 2022 invasion was Ukraine’s preliminary steps toward joining NATO. What George Kennan, the architect of the “containment policy” toward the former Soviet Union, said in 1997 about NATO expansion expected to “fuel Russian nationalist, anti-Western, and militaristic tendencies,” has been around for more than 20 years. Even after all this time, it clearly still applies.
Looking at the Russia-Ukraine war from the lens of Russia’s belief in NATO’s betrayal, Ukraine’s belief in its own sphere of influence, and its insistence on its own sphere of influence, we find that NATO admits Ukraine into its sphere of influence despite Western aid contributions. It is plausible to argue that , a betrayal of promises of aid to Ukraine. That’s a line NATO doesn’t want to cross.
But is this a signal to Russia to normalize relations? The first direct dialogue between the Russian president and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in mid-November certainly points in that direction.
