BERLIN — Germany, France and Britain see stronger NATO-Ukraine ties as a way to encourage Kyiv to start peace talks with Russia later this year, officials from the three governments said, as some of Kyiv’s western partners have growing doubts about its ability to have to retake its entire territory.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last week presented a draft deal that would give Ukraine much broader access to advanced military equipment, weapons and ammunition to defend itself once the war is over. He said the plan should be on the agenda of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s annual meeting in July.
A year after the war began, Paris and Berlin are also backing the initiative, and all three governments see it as a way to boost confidence in Ukraine and give the government there an incentive to open talks with Russia, French, German and British officials said.
Subscribe to Newsletter
What’s new
Catch the headlines, understand the news and make better decisions, every day for free in your inbox.
The officials carefully emphasized that any decision on when and under what conditions peace talks will start rests solely with Ukraine. Mr Sunak said on Friday the West should give Ukraine weapons that would give it a “decisive advantage” on the battlefield, including fighter jets.
But behind the public rhetoric are growing private doubts among politicians in Britain, France and Germany that Ukraine will be able to drive the Russians out of eastern Ukraine and Crimea, which Russia has controlled since 2014, and a belief that the West can only help sustain the war effort for so long, especially if the conflict spirals into a stalemate, officials from the three countries say.
“We keep repeating that Russia must not win, but what does that mean? If the war lasts long enough at this intensity, Ukraine’s losses will become unbearable,” said a senior French official. “And no one believes they can take Crimea back.”
Such talks stand in sharp contrast to public statements this week by President Biden and other Western leaders who called for unity to counter what they called Russian aggression. No one mentioned the prospect of Kyiv opening talks with Moscow in the near future.
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its second year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pledged that 2023 will be the year of its victory. WSJ’s Yaroslav Trofimov described the mood in the Ukrainian capital on the somber anniversary. Photo: Presidency of Ukraine/Zuma Press
In a fiery speech in Warsaw, Mr Biden tried to rally the West by saying: “The autocrat’s appetite cannot be appeased; they must be fought.”
US officials declined to comment on the proposed NATO security pact. Washington has said it wants post-war Ukraine to be sufficiently armed to deter any future Russian attack.
The federal government declined to comment. British and French government spokesmen did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he must start considering peace talks with Moscow when the three leaders met in Paris earlier this month, the call said familiar people.
Over dinner at the Élysée Palace, the lavish seat of the French Presidency, Mr Macron delivered a more sober message, people said, telling Mr Zelensky that even mortal enemies like France and Germany needed to make peace after World War II.
French President Emmanuel Macron in a suit and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in France this month.
Photo: MOHAMMED BADRA/PRESS POOL
Mr. Macron told Mr. Zelenskyy that he was a great war leader, but that eventually he would have to move on to political statecraft and make difficult decisions, these people said.
After a security conference in Munich last weekend, Mr Macron became one of the first Western leaders to publicly question whether either Ukraine or Russia could achieve their goals on the battlefield, saying neither side could prevail militarily.
He told French media: “What we need now is for Ukraine to launch a military offensive pushing back the Russian front to pave the way for a return to negotiations.”
Mr Zelenskyy said on Friday that he had repeatedly urged world leaders to urge Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet before the invasion, which the Russian leader refused. The atrocities committed by Russia over the past year have made such talks impossible, Zelenskyy said. “Now it’s us who can’t,” said Zelenskyy. “There’s nothing to talk about over there and nobody to talk about.”
A British official said another goal of the NATO pact was to change the Kremlin’s calculus. If Moscow sees that the West is willing to expand its military aid and commitment to Ukraine over time, it could help convince Moscow that it cannot achieve its military goals.
General Petr Pavel, President-elect of the Czech Republic and former NATO commander, said at the Munich conference: “We could get into a situation where the liberation of some parts of the Ukrainian territory will take more lives than is bearable for society … It there might be a point where Ukrainians can start thinking about a different outcome.”
A funeral for Ukrainian soldiers in Lviv, Ukraine.
Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
France and Germany have signaled that they will not supply new types of weapons to Ukraine in the coming weeks as fighting continues. And while Britain is training Ukrainian pilots on jet fighters, officials say it’s part of the longer-term goal of deterring Russia from future attacks.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, also speaking in Munich last week, said the war must end with what he called a lasting peace. He said: “This means ensuring that Ukraine is able to repel aggression and, if necessary, to defend itself effectively against it.”
“We need to think – and we are doing – what the future looks like after the war, to ensure that we have security and stability for Ukrainians and security and stability in Europe,” he added.
In theory, any NATO member could veto the proposal by Britain, France and Germany, but the organization operates on a consensus basis and such an initiative would not even be discussed at a summit without widespread support across the alliance.
The offer falls short of full NATO membership, which Ukraine has applied for. Still, a more limited deal could be a step in the right direction as long as it’s part of a process that aims to culminate in membership at some point in the future, said Andriy Melnyk, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister.
“We would like to have security guarantees on the way to NATO,” Zelenskyy said at a press conference on Friday.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Western allies held strict red lines on the type of assistance they would provide. But as the war changed, so did the nature of the aid. The Wall Street Journal examines policy U-turns by Ukraine’s allies to illustrate how the war has unfolded over the past year. Photo: Andoni Lubaki/Sipa/Portal
The pact launched would not include a commitment to station NATO forces in Ukraine, officials from the three countries said. Nor would it offer Kyiv the so-called Article 5 protections, which require all members to come to the aid of others if they are under attack and ask for help. But they said it would give Ukraine the military means to repel any future Russian attack.
While the exact terms are not specified, several of those officials said Ukraine could gain access to a wide range of NATO-standard weapon systems and integrate its armed forces more closely into the Western defense industry supply chain. Germany has already signaled its willingness to provide concrete assistance on a permanent basis, including air defence, heavy artillery, tanks and ammunition. Britain has spoken about the delivery of fighter jets. Alongside this, officials said, individual members of Ukraine would continue to provide bilateral military assistance.
“The NATO summit must make a clear offer to Ukraine, also to give Zelenskyy a political victory to present at home as an incentive for negotiations,” the British official said. “Russia’s wars tend to freeze and thaw, and that’s why Ukraine will need more guarantees from us.”
While London, Paris and Berlin see the possibility that after an expected counter-offensive this spring, Kiev will have to seek talks with Russia that could help it regain more territory, other supporters of Ukraine say there should be no negotiations as long as Russian troops are there stay on Ukrainian soil. Many point out that Mr. Putin has shown no sign of willingness to speak in good faith about peace.
Most Central and Eastern European governments fear that encouraging Ukraine to negotiate before either Moscow or Kiev are ready could embolden Russia by hinting at dwindling Western support. These governments believe that Mr. Putin is still committed to his original war aim of capturing the Ukrainian capital and overthrowing its government.
At the same time, the eastern NATO members do not want to act as an obstacle to peace talks. Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states have thrown their support behind Mr Zelensky’s plans to end the war, a ten-point proposal that includes monetary compensation, war crimes trials for Russian officials and respect for Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
The London-Paris-Berlin proposal represents a possible set of security guarantees that could allow Ukraine to be confident that Russia would not use a ceasefire as a pause before launching another invasion.
On Friday night, leaders of the Group of Seven, which includes France, Britain and Germany, said in a statement they were ready to make “security and other commitments to help Ukraine defend itself, its free and… secure democratic future and deter future Russian aggression.”
So far, the proposal has been discussed only marginally, Central European officials said, but they are largely reluctant to sign a long-term NATO status for Ukraine that doesn’t equate to full membership of the alliance.
—Sabrina Siddiqui in Warsaw, Drew Hinshaw in Madrid, and Yaroslav Trofimov in Kyiv, Ukraine contributed to this article.
Write to Bojan Pancevski at [email protected] and Laurence Norman at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8