Leo Litra, Senior Research Fellow at New Europe Center, Visiting Fellow at ECFR prepared detailed commentary about Ukraine`s bilateral security agreements. It is important to be clear about their limitations.
Key messages:
- the agreements declare that countries will support Ukraine’s security for the next ten years or until it joins #NATO – sending a clear message of their support to Kyiv;
- at the same the degree and terms of this support are not clear: none of agreements are ratified by the parliaments of the signatory countries. They only include an initial financial commitments for 2024;
- using the term guarantees is misleading: Ukraine relied on a similar ‘guarantee’ without legal mechanisms to enforce it when it gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for protection from the United States, the UK, and Russia under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum;
- although the agreements do not provide security guarantees to Ukraine, they do offer wide room for manoeuvre for Kyiv’s allies to take bold steps should the political conditions allow.
More details are via link.
