The war with Russia is going very badly for Ukraine. At the beginning of July, the Russian armed forces took full control of the Luhansk region for the first time. And, though it is too early to tell if they will hold it, there are now unconfirmed reports that the Ukrainian front line defending Pokrovsk has collapsed and that the Russian army has broken through, rapidly advancing 6-10 kilometers and cutting Ukraine’s supply lines. There are now even unconfirmed reports that Russian forces have entered Pokrovsk, which, if true, is a severe strategic setback for Ukraine.
But Ukrainians must feel that it is not just Russia that is pummeling them. Ukrainians must feel as though the whole world has abandoned them.
In the first weeks of the war in 2022, before all the loss of life and land, Ukraine was prepared to sign a peace with Russia that would have satisfied its goals. The United States and its Western allies—particularly the United Kingdom and Poland—encouraged them off the diplomatic path and pushed them into war with Russia with the assurance that they would be provided with everything they need for as long as they need it.
Ukraine needs more, and they need it for longer, but the promise has been broken, and Ukraine is largely on its own. The U.S. will no longer provide Ukraine with military equipment unless European countries buy it for them. But several European countries have opted out of the deal, and even if all of Europe was all in, not enough weapons can be made available on time to save Ukraine.
Ukraine provided the bodies the United States asked for in its proxy war with Russia, but the U.S. broke its promise to arm them. Now the Donabas is nearly lost, the Ukrainian armed forces is in real danger of collapsing, and Ukraine looks to be on the verge of losing the war the U.S. pushed them into fighting.
And it is not just the U.S. that has abandoned Ukraine, it is the entire NATO community that pretended to court it. Ukraine was pushed to fight to defend its right to join NATO and the alliance’s right to expand where it wanted. As the U.S. State Department explained it, “each and every country has a sovereign right to determine its own foreign policy, has a sovereign right to determine for itself with whom it will choose to associate in terms of its alliances, its partnerships, and what orientation it wishes to direct its gaze.”
Ukraine was seduced with promises of an “irreversible path for Ukraine into NATO.” But at the recently concluded NATO summit, the issue of Ukrainian membership was not even on the agenda. The Summit Declaration contained not one word about Ukraine joining NATO and not one promise of an irreversible bridge.
Russia was not going to end the war without written guarantees that Ukraine would never join NATO. But Russia did seem prepared to give Ukraine an open road to European Union membership. And Europe had courted Ukraine with promises of fast tracking their accession. But, like the United States and NATO, the European Union seems to have abandoned Ukraine.
Richard Sakwa, Emeritus Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, told me in a recent correspondence that “a growing number of member states are growing uncomfortable with the idea of Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.”
Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, promised in a recent social media post to “do everything” to prevent Ukraine from joining the EU. But Ukraine’s long time EU ambassador, Olha Stefanishyna, recently revealed that there is more than one country—not just Hungary—that have concerns about Ukraine joining the EU. Public support in some other countries, including the Czech Republic, is low. And Poland’s new president, Karol Nawrocki, campaigned against Ukraine accession to the EU.
Professor Molly O’Neal, a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told me that some of the objections to Ukraine joining the EU are very pragmatic. “The most daunting obstacle to Ukraine’s accession to the EU,” she told me, “is the financial/budgetary implications of EU structural aid and agricultural sector support.” She went on to explain that “if Ukraine joined, Poland, which has been a big beneficiary from the EU budget, would become a net contributor to the EU budget. This would not be popular in Poland to put it mildly.” The shift would result from Ukraine’s huge agricultural sector competing with Poland’s. O’Neal says that “even France would have reservations about this, given its large farming sector.”
To qualify for EU membership, all of a country’s legislation has to be consistent with and in conformity with EU standards. This process takes several years. The EU had promised to fast track Ukraine with hopes of membership as early as 2030. But German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently admitted that it will take much longer and suggested 2035 as more likely.
O’Neal added that “there are several Balkan countries who are in the process and have been for several years. These are Montenegro, Albania, Serbia and North Macedonia. “It would be strange,” she said, “to leapfrog Ukraine over these.” Ironically, it is some of the most insistent supporters of Ukraine joining NATO who are most strongly opposed to its joining the European Union.
Ukraine’s struggle to join the EU has recently suffered even more setbacks. The first round of formal negotiations on Ukraine’s accession were supposed to happen on July 18. They did not. Stefanishyna conceded that the EU is “not currently prepared to take the decisions” that Ukraine had hoped for. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky then reassigned Stefanishyna, taking her off the EU file and making her the special envoy to the U.S. in what some analysts see as Zelensky despairing of EU membership and downgrading Ukraine’s representation to the EU.
And the recent signing of legislation by Zelensky that ended the independence of Kiev’s anticorruption agencies has made its bid for EU membership even more tenuous. Curing its rampant corruption is a key to Ukraine qualifying for EU membership. The new law is a major setback. It places Ukraine’s anticorruption agencies under the control of Ukraine’s prosecutor general who is appointed by the president. That places all ability of agencies to investigate government corruption under the control of the government.
That, too, must feel like a significant betrayal by Ukrainians who have been fighting politically and dying militarily to end corruption and nurture democracy. Thousand have taken to the streets to protest the law.
But it is also a further enabler of the European Union’s betrayal and a further setback to Ukraine’s membership. “The fastest way for Ukraine to lose the support of both the EU member states and the public in the member states,” Poland’s Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said, “is to go back to the bad old days of corruption. As a corrupt country, Ukraine will not make it into the EU.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has also warned that the new direction taken by Zelensky could be an impediment to Ukraine joining the European Union:
“The respect for the rule of law and the fight against corruption are core elements of the European Union. As a candidate country, Ukraine is expected to uphold these standards fully. There cannot be a compromise.”
Facing an unexpected storm of resistance, Zelensky back peddled and submitted a new bill meant to restore the two anticorruption agency’s independence. But concern has been raised that the new bill will not go far enough in completely and consistently restoring independence. There is even greater concern that it is too late to reverse the damage done by Zelensky’s public revelation of his intent.
For three-and-a-half years, Ukrainians have fought the war that the United States and its Western allies asked it to fight. As many as three quarters of a million soldiers may have died, and Ukraine faces the very real possibility of collapse and of losing the war. Ukraine has not received whatever they need for as long as they need it as the U.S. and Britain promised. They will not receive NATO membership. They will not receive European Union membership on a fast track any time soon. Ukrainians must feel like they have been abandoned by their own government and by the world.
