Tetiana Melnyk explores the viability of several security guarantees for Ukraine. A lasting resolution to the conflict would require a more systematic integration of Ukraine, and potentially other Eastern European states, into as many Western structures and organisations as possible, she writes.
Institutionalised and forward-looking security and defence cooperation during the war and interim period are critical security guarantees for Ukraine. Kateryna Anisova writes that the G7-EU-coalition-of-willing nexus can assure a comprehensive and mutually reinforcing approach for bolstering Ukraine’s capabilities and integrating it into the Euro-Atlantic security system before the war ends.
Current security guarantees for Ukraine range from unavailable to ineffective, writes Sascha Ostanina. She proposes a middle-ground solution to provide collective security for Ukraine through a binding self-defence agreement between the EU and Ukraine. Such an agreement would provide Ukraine with access to weapons and ammunition in the event of Russian aggression.
To avoid making post-war Ukraine’s public sentiments grow anti-Western or isolationist, Denys Karlovskyi writes that NATO must build a mutually beneficial framework of security cooperation with Ukraine’s government and maintain the current level of Ukrainian public support for NATO and the EU. One way of achieving this is for NATO member states to engage with the Ukrainian public in a way that is on par with the government.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, governments in the former Soviet Union were immediately forced to deal with difficult geopolitical realities. In this report for the ELN, YGLN member Daniel Shapiro uses quantitative and qualitative analysis to show there is increased heterogeneity in geopolitical positioning among post-Soviet states and offers key lessons from this for Western policymakers.
Alexandra Filippenko explores the reasons why Russian civil society institutions failed to prevent the war in Ukraine and suggests a number of measures that Western democracies may take together with Russian opposition leaders to end the war and establish a lasting peace.