The EU has agreed to offer “future security commitments” to Ukraine as the bloc’s leaders seek to negotiate long-term pledges for Kiev amid growing instability in Russia and entrenched battle lines in the war.
The bloc’s 27 leaders made the pledge at a summit on Thursday as modest progress on Ukraine’s counteroffensive and the fallout from Wagner’s failed coup in Russia prompted capitals to rethink what levels of support Kiev needs.
The agreement commits the EU to continuing to fund arms supplies to Kiev through the European Peace Support Mechanism, a fund paid for by capitals, according to a person briefed on the discussions.
They also pledged to expand the EU’s initiative to train Ukrainian troops and explore the possibility of EU military missions in Ukraine if the terms are deemed appropriate, the person added.
EU members France and Germany, along with the UK and US, led efforts to agree bilateral security deals to provide Ukraine with long-term funding, military supplies, training and intelligence aimed at helping it repel a full-scale invasion by Russia and to protect her from future aggression.
While falling short of the mutual defense that would come with NATO membership, the pledges are designed to provide some form of brake to reassure Kiev and give it confidence in the West’s enduring support.
The EU declaration, drafted by France, aims to send a “very clear political signal” to Ukraine and Russia, according to a diplomat involved in the discussions. The bloc is also believed to have a stake in the broader security framework set up to protect Ukraine and will not be removed from US-led NATO, according to a second official.
But it has met with some resistance from Ireland, Malta and Austria, the bloc’s neutral states, according to officials briefed on the discussions, who want clarity on what the “commitments” will and will not include.
Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s prime minister, said before the summit that the details were “something we will discuss as part of today’s discussions”.
“We support (Ukraine) financially and politically. We are happy to make these ongoing security commitments, but what we cannot do as a country is to make a mutual defense commitment because that would violate our policy of neutrality,” he added.
Other leaders also said more clarification was needed. “This European track would be additional. We will have to discuss how far it goes and whether it will be lethal or non-lethal support,” Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, said on his arrival at the meeting.
The EU and its member states “are ready to contribute, together with partners, to future security commitments to Ukraine that will help Ukraine defend itself in the long term, deter acts of aggression and resist destabilization efforts” , the leaders agreed in a joint statement.
It added that work would be done to “rapidly consider the modalities of such contribution” while taking into account “the security and defense policy of some member states” with neutral countries in mind.
Some member states previously said the idea of ”commitments” was too loosely defined and asked the EU’s foreign policy to draw up a document codifying the terms.
“We are already doing quite a bit in terms of security commitments,” an EU diplomat said, referring to the bloc’s financial support for Kiev and its initiatives to procure, produce and deliver increased levels of ammunition.
Asked about the security commitment, Kaja Kalas, Estonia’s prime minister, said “each individual ally” had to decide what they could do. “But the important thing is to say this is business as usual,” Callas said Wednesday.
“We are working on (the wording). We don’t want to have hollow, empty words.”
Ukraine’s difficult but slow progress against heavily entrenched Russian positions in occupied southeastern Ukraine has dampened hopes in some capitals for a quick breakthrough on the battlefield that could spark peace talks.
At the same time, Russian military commander Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion against the country’s top leadership has raised questions about the unity of the Russian military and how Ukraine can best take advantage of it.
“For better or for worse, the outcome (of the counter-offensive) will affect everything we do regarding Ukraine, and we’re all aware of that,” said a senior European diplomat who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. . “Funding, support, political commitment . . . and most importantly, the peace talks that are coming, whether we like them or not.”