Ukraine–NATO relations
Relations between Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization started in 1991 following Ukraine's independence after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Ukraine-NATO ties gradually strengthened during the 1990s and 2000s, when Ukraine aimed to eventually join the alliance. Although co-operating with NATO, Ukraine remained a neutral country. Ukraine has increasingly sought NATO membership after it was attacked by Russia in 2014, and again in 2022. NATO has increased its support for, and co-operation with, Ukraine.
Ukraine joined NATO's Partnership for Peace in 1994. The NATO-Ukraine Commission was founded in 1997, tasked with developing the NATO-Ukraine relationship. Ukraine joined NATO's Intensified Dialogue program in 2005. At the 2008 Bucharest summit, NATO declined to offer Ukraine a Membership Action Plan, but said that Ukraine would eventually join the alliance. In 2010, during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian parliament voted to abandon the goal of NATO membership and re-affirm Ukraine's neutral status, while continuing its co-operation with NATO. In the February 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, Ukraine's parliament voted to remove Yanukovych, but the new government did not seek to change its neutral status. Russia then occupied and annexed Crimea, and in August 2014 Russia's military invaded eastern Ukraine to support its separatist proxies. Because of this, in December 2014 Ukraine's parliament voted to seek NATO membership, and in 2018 it voted to enshrine this goal in its constitution. NATO condemned Russia's actions and affirmed its support for Ukraine's sovereignty; a few NATO members began helping Ukraine's military of their own accord.
Russian opposition to Ukrainian NATO membership has grown during the Russo-Ukrainian War. In late 2021, there was a massive Russian military buildup around Ukraine. Russia's Foreign Ministry demanded that Ukraine be forbidden from ever joining NATO. NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg replied that the decision was up to Ukraine and NATO's members, adding, "Russia has no right to establish a sphere of influence to try to control their neighbors." Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 after Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, falsely claimed that NATO was using Ukraine to threaten his country. Ukraine applied for NATO membership in September 2022 after Russia proclaimed it had annexed the country's southeast. NATO stated its unwavering support for Ukraine. It established the NATO–Ukraine Council in 2023 and the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine in 2024.
Polls held before 2014 found little support amongst Ukrainians for NATO membership. Public support for NATO membership has risen greatly since 2022.
History
, adopted by parliament in 1990, declared it had the "intention of becoming a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs and adheres to three nuclear free principles".Presidency of Leonid Kravchuk (1991–1994)
Relations between Ukraine and NATO were formally established in 1992, when Ukraine joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council after regaining its independence, later renamed the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. On 22 and 23 February 1992, NATO secretary-general Manfred Wörner paid an official visit to Kyiv, and on 8 July 1992, Kravchuk visited NATO Headquarters in Brussels. An important event in the development of relations between Ukraine and NATO was the opening in September 1992 of the Embassy of Ukraine in Brussels, which was a link in contacts between Ukraine and NATO.A few years later, in February 1994, Ukraine was the first post-Soviet country to conclude a framework agreement with NATO in the framework of the Partnership for Peace initiative, supporting the initiative of Central and Eastern European countries to join NATO.
Presidency of Leonid Kuchma (1994–2005)
, who became president in July 1994, signed the quadripartite Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine's accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons on 5 December. The memorandum prohibited the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, "except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations." As a result of other agreements and the memorandum, between 1993 and 1996, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons.In the summer of 1995, Ukraine requested help to mitigate consequences of the Kharkiv drinking water disaster to the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs and to NATO. Various NATO countries and other organizations stepped up with medical and civil engineering assistance. This was the first cooperation between NATO and Ukraine.
The Constitution of Ukraine, adopted in 1996 and based upon the Ukrainian Proclamation of Independence of 24 August 1991, contained the basic principles of non-coalition and future neutrality.
Kuchma and Russian president Boris Yeltsin negotiated terms for dividing the Black Sea Fleet based in Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, signing an interim treaty on 10 June 1995. But Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov campaigned to claim the city of Sevastopol which housed the fleet's headquarters and main naval base, and in December the Russian Federation Council officially endorsed the claim. These Russian nationalist territorial claims spurred Ukraine to propose a "special partnership" with NATO in January 1997. On 7 May 1997, the official NATO Information and Documentation Center opened in Kyiv; the Center aimed to foster transparency about the alliance. A Ukrainian public opinion poll of 6 May showed 37% in favor of joining NATO with 28% opposed and 34% undecided. On 9 July 1997, a NATO-Ukraine Commission was established.
In 1998, the NATO-Ukraine Joint Working Group on Defence Reform was established. This sought to reform Ukraine's large conscript forces into a smaller, more mobile and professional force and strengthen civilian control of Ukraine's armed forces and security institutions.
In 2002, relations of the governments of the United States and other NATO countries with Ukraine deteriorated after the Cassette Scandal revealed that Ukraine allegedly transferred a sophisticated Ukrainian defense system to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. At the NATO enlargement summit in November 2002, the NATO–Ukraine commission adopted a NATO-Ukraine Action Plan. President Kuchma's declaration that Ukraine wanted to join NATO and the sending of Ukrainian troops to Iraq in 2003 could not mend relations between Kuchma and NATO. Until 2006 the Ukrainian Armed Forces worked with NATO in Iraq. Most officials believed it would be too risky to allow Ukraine to join NATO as it would upset Russia greatly.
On 6 April 2004, parliament adopted a law on the free access of NATO forces to the territory of Ukraine. On 15 June 2004, in the second edition of the Military Doctrine of Ukraine, approved by President Kuchma, a provision appeared on the implementation by Ukraine of a policy of Euro-Atlantic integration, the ultimate goal of which was to join NATO. However, already on 15 July 2004, following a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO commission, Kuchma issued a decree stating that joining NATO was no longer the country's goal – only "a significant deepening of relations with NATO and the European Union as guarantors of security and stability in Europe."
Presidency of Viktor Yushchenko (2005–2010)
After the Orange Revolution in 2004, Kuchma was replaced by President Viktor Yushchenko, who is a keen supporter of Ukraine's NATO membership.In April 2005, Viktor Yushchenko returned to Ukraine's military doctrine the strategic goal of "full membership in NATO and the European Union". The new text read as follows: "Based on the fact that NATO and the EU are the guarantors of security and stability in Europe, Ukraine is preparing for full membership in these organizations." As in the previous version, the task of "deeply reforming the defense sphere of the state in accordance with European standards" was called "one of the most important priorities of domestic and foreign policy." On 21 April 2005 in Vilnius, as part of an informal meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the NATO countries, a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Commission was held, which opened a new stage in Ukraine's relations with the alliance – "intensive dialogue", which was intended to be the first step towards Ukraine's entry into NATO. During President Viktor Yushchenko's first official visit to the United States, President George W. Bush declared: "I am a supporter of the idea of Ukraine's membership in NATO." A joint official statement by the presidents of Ukraine and the United States said that Washington supported the proposal to start an intensified dialogue on Ukraine's accession to the NATO.
On 20 January 2006 in Budapest, following a meeting of defense ministers of Central European countries – NATO members – Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia – it was announced that these states were ready to support Ukraine's entry into NATO. As stated, a necessary condition for this should be the support of this step by Ukrainian society and the achievement of internal stability in Ukraine.
On 27 April 2006 at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, the representative of the NATO secretary general, James Appathurai, stated that all members of the alliance support the speedy integration of Ukraine into NATO. Russia, for its part, expressed concern about this development. As the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Mikhail Kamynin stated, "de facto, we will talk about a serious military-political shift affecting the interests of Russia, which will require significant funds for the corresponding reorientation of military potentials, the reorganization of the system of military-industrial relations. Arrangements in the field of arms control may be affected.”
After the Party of Regions received the largest number of votes in the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election and the new government, headed by Viktor Yushchenko's political rival Viktor Yanukovych, was formed, there was a turn in Ukraine's foreign policy. By the end of 2006, not a single representative of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine bloc remained in the government. Viktor Yanukovych's foreign policy statements contradicted Yushchenko's course. Yanukovych's premiership ended following 2007 parliamentary election, when Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense Bloc formed a coalition government, with Yulia Tymoshenko as Prime Minister.