Weeked Update #109: Ukrainian Land for NATO?

Also: Trump's Choices, Ranged Fire and the Battlefield

Hi All,

This week was notable because for the first time the Ukrainian President mentioned a possible cease-fire deal that involved trading (perhaps temporarily) control over some of Ukraine’s legally recognized territory in exchange for NATO membership for the rest. Its worthy of note. Also, Incoming President Trump makes a personnel choice from a Ukrainian perspective that is not entirely bad (though dont get your hopes up just yet). And finally, its interesting to note what has happened in Kursk in the two weeks since Ukraine has been given US permission to make ranged attacks on Russian military targets—and that would be little changing.

Is Zelensky willing to trade Ukrainian land for NATO membership?

Before that, I released an article in The Atlantic yesterday which has gotten a great deal of comment. Regular readers of this Substack will know that I have been increasingly critical of the Ukraine policy of the Biden Administration over the last two years. The Atlantic asked me to summarize where we stand, and the end product is one of the more depressing pieces I’ve ever written. However I believe it needed to be said. The Biden Administration has taken what was an unexpected strategic opportunity to make the world safer and more democratic, and through bungling, arrogance and, crucially, an inability to learn—has made things much worse and the world less secure.

I sent out a post about this piece, which contains the (rather long) first draft of the article, for those who subscribe and would like to have a look.

I do think its important to hold the Biden Administration to account for this—its one of the greatest US foreign policy failings of my lifetime.

Now—onto the rest of the update.

Ukrainian Land for NATO?

President Zelensky in an interview for British television spoke out-loud an idea that has been circulating for a while yet. And that idea is that a cease-fire could be agreed (or “hot phase of the war” ended) and in exchange Russia would be allowed to occupy some of the Ukrainian land they have seized. What Ukraine would want in exchange for this concession (and it is a major one) would be NATO membership covering the rest of Ukraine (the parts that Russia would not be allowed to occupy.

If you want to watch the news story about the interview, and listen to what Zelensky said, here is a clip below.

If you want to read the text instead—here is an excerpt.

"If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control," he said.

"We need to do it fast. And then on the [occupied] territory of Ukraine, Ukraine can get them back in a diplomatic way."

Mr Zelenskyy said a ceasefire was needed to "guarantee that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will not come back" to take more Ukrainian territory.

He said NATO should "immediately" cover the part of Ukraine that remains under Kyiv's control, something he said Ukraine needs "very much otherwise he will come back".

Now, this deal, if it were agreed has a number of huge issues that would have to be resolved. First, would the land that Russia still occupied (Crimea, parts of the Donbas) be ceded by Ukraine to Russia, or would Russian occupation just no longer be militarily opposed? That is a major issue—as Ukraine ceding the territory legally would have profound implications (throughout Europe). It would end the post-1945 world where international borders have been considered recognized. In a nutshell, that means that European states would have recognized that any of their borders could be re-written by force. If you were, therefore, part of the USSR or imperial Russia (Finland, the Baltics, Poland, etc) you would therefore see a legitimization of Russian claims to your land—presuming Russia could seize it by force.

I do think people who talk casually of giving up land to Russia don’t fully understand to what they are agreeing. So the legal status of the territory occupied by Russia would be extremely important, and Zelensky not surprisingly doesn’t go into that.

In exchange for allowing Russia to continue occupying parts of Ukraine, Zelensky stated that NATO membership would be required for the rest. Now that again has some questions—if the ceasefire freezes the line as is (the JD Vance position) does that mean that one inch over that line is now NATO territory. The incoming Trump administration has dropped hints that they want no NATO membership, so it would be rather surprising if they agreed to that.

On the other hand, many European states, would want Ukraine in NATO asap, and as much of Ukraine’s territory as possible. So this point is far from straightforward.

Btw, this probably will get its own piece—however if a deal could be constructed that did give Ukraine NATO membership and in exchange saw Russia continuing to occupy parts of Ukraine, but crucially not be given legal title, one could see the advantages of such a deal for Ukraine—especially considering the fact that the White House will soon be occupied by Trump.

And there is also the question of Kursk (more on that below). What no one has seemed to deal with is what happens if a cease-fire is called and Ukraine still occupies a chunk of Russia? That is a curveball that was not expected when such deals first started being mooted at the start of 2024 (see the Kellogg plan below). Its also why Putin is desperate to take the Ukrainian salient back and Ukraine is trying to keep it. Holding a section of Russia provides Ukraine with some leverage to get Russia to pull back from some of the parts of Ukraine that Russia has seized this year.

Its a long way of saying that any such deal of NATO membership for Ukraine and Russia occupying some Ukrainian land is not necessarily to be dismissed out of hand—however there are some major questions that need to be worked out before it could see the light of day. These are the legal title of the land, the fate of Kursk, and the extent of NATO membership.

Trump's Choices

This week there was the feintest sliver of good news for Ukraine supporters coming from the Trump transition effort. And I reinforce the idea that it is a sliver, because really the overall power structure around Trump is not at all favorable to Ukraine and that needs to be understood (more on that below). Moreover, even this “good” news comes with a serious dose of negativity. So it is good within an overall very worrying and negative framework.

The news was that Trump’s choice to be his Ukraine-Russia envoy is retired General Keith Kellogg.

General Keith Kellogg (retd)

Kellogg has been a devoted Trump loyalist for a while now and that gives him some standing. As we can see from Trump’s choices so far, loyalty to Trump is by far the most important characteristic being used in the selection process. The “good” news—and again this is all relative, is that Kellogg has been arguably the person around Trump who has been most vocal about continuing aid to Ukraine and not going for an immediate cut-off.

In June, Kellogg and Fred Fleitz released a sketch “peace” plan for Russia and Ukraine that had the US continuing to supply Ukraine with a considerable amount of military aid. However, before you get excited, the rest of Kellogg’s vision is pretty negative. He has talked about basically freezing the conflict and forcing Ukraine to hand over the occupied territories, and at the same time talked about Ukraine giving up NATO membership for the foreseeable future.

So the continuation of aid comes with some very serious strings attached. Its why I am very hesitant to call this good news. And, lets be frank, its unlikely that Kellogg will have the kind of influence in Trump’s inner circle as a Donald Trump Jr or Elon Musk—who are very influential and seem to be pushing a very anti-Ukraine line. Kellogg also being 80 years old my limit his energy and ability to forcefully argue his case.

At least he’s not Kash Patel—so that is something.

Overall, the Trump selections seem to be setting into a (less than comforting) pattern. There are some more traditionalist Republicans in outward facing foreign policy roles—Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Mike Walz as National Security Adviser, and arguably now Keith Kellogg as Ukraine envoy. However in the case of the first two, they have now spent years remaking themselves into MAGA loyalists, and its very hard to say what is left of their more traditionalist roots. On the other hand, the inner circle (Don Jr, Musk, JD Vance) remains fiercely anti-Ukraine. If Trump were to favor the outward facing over the inner circle, that would be a notable departure.

Ranged Fire and the Battlefield

Well its now been two weeks since the Biden Administration, begrudgingly and in a limited fashion, allowed Ukraine to fire at military targets in Russia. I talked about that last weekend if you want to go back and have a look.

Weekend Update #108: Ukrainian Ranged Strike is Authorized--But so far is Limited.

I think we can say that the limitations I talked about in last week’s piece are still very much in force. Ukraine doesn’t have that many US weapons that can make such attacks. There have bee a few notable ATACMS strikes on targets supporting the Russian Kursk Offensive, but only a handful. Moreover, all the strikes so far have been in the general Kursk area, so it seems unlikely that Ukraine can use US systems in other theatres—for instance in helping Ukraine attack Russian logistics or command/control supporting Russian attacks in the Donbas.

We need to be careful to say what the Ukrainians have attacked around Kursk, but they do seem to be going for logistics and command/control with their now enabled range strike. They opened up by attacking a command centre which seems to have held a number of North Korean officers. There have also reportedly been attacks on Russian airfields and Russian depots which could support Russian offensive action in Kursk.

So while the information is still small in number, its consistent in targeting (only Russian targets supporting their attempts to retake Kursk). Does it matter. Far too early to say. Considering the small number of attacks Ukraine has been able to make, one doesn’t want to jump to conclusions. That being said, its worth noting that in the last 10 days, Russian attempts to take back any of their Kursk holdings have mostly stalled. Here is the Deep State Map just after the ranged strikes started.

And here is the most recent.

A small change around the edge, but he main salient Ukraine has seized in Kursk remains intact.

And retaking this salient remains one of Putin’s highest priorities. It was said he had dispatched 50,000 or troops, including 10,000 North Koreans, to try and retake it. If so, its been a very difficult task for the Russians since the Ukrainians were given the ability to make ranged strike.

Lets see how it plays out over the coming days, but so far even very limited range strike seems to have the ability to shape what is happening on the battlefield.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.