Poland’s head of state has asked NATO powers to provide post-war security guarantees to Ukraine, on the eve of the US president’s visit to Warsaw to reaffirm western support for Kyiv a year into Russia’s war.
Andrzej Duda told the Financial Times that the promise of security guarantees “will be important” for Ukraine and the morale of the soldiers by confirming “this feeling that NATO stays with them”.
The call from the Polish president comes as he prepares to host Joe Biden in what is expected to be a key point of the US president’s visit this week to mark the anniversary of the Russian invasion.
While Ukraine knows it cannot join NATO now, Kyiv expects a “partnership” with “security guarantees”, Duda said in an interview on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Duda also asked Biden to reaffirm “in the strongest terms” during his visit to Warsaw that the US does not stand behind NATO’s Article 5, the collective defense clause that considers any attack on a member state an attack on all.
Security guarantees that Ukraine wants will be structured differently, effectively binding NATO powers such as the US, UK and France to provide military assistance in the event of an attack on Ukraine.
Former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who wrote the official proposal for Ukraine’s post-war security with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak, said the guarantee is similar to what Israel wants from the US.
In Munich, US and German officials downplayed the need for security guarantees at this stage, arguing that military support provided to Ukraine was the guarantee Kyiv needed.
But Ukraine remains convinced that it needs more guarantees of military support after the experience with the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. In the agreement, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for promises from Russia, Britain and the US not to use military force against it.
Kyiv applied for NATO membership in September, although allies admit this is not a short-term prospect as long as the war continues.
Duda’s call for assurances requires raising Washington’s promises to Ukraine beyond what Biden has said recently. Some other NATO countries have also remained wary of the pledges for fear of being dragged into a war with Russia, and have even objected to strengthening Ukraine’s military in order to defend itself.
“There is quite a strong debate about security guarantees, but I really don’t think that President Biden wants to continue this now,” said Michał Baranowski, director of the Warsaw office of the German Marshall Fund think-tank. However, he said, the US government is pushing ahead with the “hedgehog strategy”, which means “arming the Ukrainians with their teeth so that they can directly deal with Russia”.
Biden is visiting Warsaw for the second time in a year and Duda predicted that this week’s trip will have a “big impact” on “the entire east side of NATO”.
“There is also a signal being sent to US investors,” Duda said, referring to Poland and neighboring Ukraine. “This place is safe so you can safely invest your money here.”
After ending a long dispute over whether Germany would agree to send German-made Leopard tanks to Ukraine, tensions have now surfaced over when the tanks will be delivered. Germany last week expelled Poland and other countries armed with Leopards for not sending them to Kyiv sooner.
But Duda said Poland remains committed to its military commitments to Ukraine and that the delay also points to the need to ensure the availability of spare parts for the Leopards.
“I don’t know what he’s doing [by Germany]”, said Duda. “It is Germany that is the only manufacturer of spare parts. . . No other country has the authority to do this. So if Germany does not supply the spare parts, we have a problem.
Biden’s stay in Warsaw on Tuesday and Wednesday will include meetings with the Bucharest Nine group of countries from central and eastern Europe that joined NATO after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Biden is scheduled to give a speech on Tuesday evening to “clarify that the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine . . . for as long as it takes”, said John Kirby, spokesman for the US National Security Council, who did not arrange a meeting with Zelenskyy during the trip . “We are in constant communication with the Ukrainians about what they want.”
Additional reporting by Lauren Fedor in Washington