Poland calls on NATO to offer ‘security guarantees’ to Ukraine after the war with Russia – comparing it to US support for Israel
- Poland has called for NATO to make assurances to Ukraine for postwar security
- U.S. President Biden is visiting Warsaw to mark the anniversary of the invasion
Poland has called for NATO to make postwar assurances of military backing to Ukraine.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said ‘security guarantees’ made now ‘would be important’ for Ukrainian morale amid NATO warnings of a new Russian offensive.
This comes as U.S. President Biden touches down in Warsaw today to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this month.
Former NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen has already co-authored a formal proposal for Ukraine to benefit from an arrangement similar to the one the United States already has with Israel.
While Israel – like Ukraine – is not a member of NATO, the United States provides large-scale political support including extended loan guarantees and the technology to keep a ‘qualitative military edge’ over rivals.
Polish President Andrzej Duda speaks at a NATO defence ministers’ meeting on 15 February
Ukrainian soldiers firing at Russian positions near the city of Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine
Duda said at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend that Kyiv was now expecting a ‘partnership’ and wanted the assurances that ‘NATO stands with them’.
Last September, Ukraine published its Kyiv Security Compact, proposing measures to mobilise ‘the necessary political, financial, military and diplomatic resources’ for its self-defence, which included local militias and NATO military trainers in Ukraine.
Rasmussen’s policy chief said NATO-backing for Ukrainian self-defence efforts post-war would be ‘a different approach [to clauses like Article 5]. One party provides all the necessary resources for the party under attack to defend itself.’
NATO powers would not, in this case, be obliged to enter into a war were Ukraine attacked again in future.
Such an agreement would deliver legally binding guarantees of advanced defence weapons systems.
Rasmussen previously compared such an agreement to the one between the U.S. and Israel.
But representatives for the U.S. and Germany suggested this weekend the current arrangement to send military technology was sufficient.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also said Ukraine would soon be able to deploy its first Leopard tanks.
The Polish President also asked Biden to underscore U.S. commitment to NATO’s ‘Article 5’, which holds an attack on any one member state to be an attack on all.
Under this clause, the United States and other member states would be obliged to come to the aid of Poland if Russia were to attack beyond Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov called for Putin’s army to ‘denazify and demilitarise Poland’ as tensions rise between east and west.
Polish President Andrzej Duda (C-R) and US President Joe Biden (C-L) during an official welcome ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland, 26 March 2022
Buildings damaged by a Russian military strike in city of Vuhledar on 18 February 2023
Ukrainian servicemen ride on top of an armored transporter outside Kupiansk, 18 February
Fears of the war spilling into central Europe have ramped up ahead of the anniversary of the war, and as both sides push to expand and modernise their equipment.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy then said Ukrainian intelligence had intercepted Russian plans to ‘destroy’ Moldova, similar to the invasion of Ukraine.
Moldova is not a NATO member but has an agreement of ‘permanent neutrality’.
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