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Sergei Kuznetsov “Today it is clear that Ukraine’s non-aligned status, proclaimed in 2010, cannot guarantee our security and territorial integrity. We must abolish it. This position has led to serious losses. That is why we have decided to return to the course of Nato integration.” So said Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president (pictured), in a speech to the new parliament in Kiev last week. It came just a fortnight after Moscow described the possibility of Ukraine joining Nato as a “red line” in its relations with the west and demanded, in the words of a Russian presidential spokesman, a “100 per cent guarantee that no-one would think about Ukraine joining Nato.” Will Ukraine really push ahead with Nato accession? Nato made its own position clear quickly enough: on Friday, the alliance updated its fact sheet on relations with Russia to state that “Ukraine has the right to choose its own alliances, and Russia has, by its own repeated agreement, no right to dictate that choice.” But there is unlikely to be full-blooded support for such a move. Borys Tarasiuk, a former Ukrainian foreign minister and representative at Nato – while stressing that the issue will be decided between Nato and Ukraine, not Nato and Russia – says accession is not now on the agenda. Nato members, indeed, may not rush to welcome Kiev to their club. Tarasiuk admits that there are “not so many enthusiasts [among Nato member states] who would support Ukraine’s membership… The reason for that is Nato’s inability to work out an adequate response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine,” he says. Such a stalemate is further testament to the destabilising impact of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Nato says it worked with the administrations of former Ukrainian presidents Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yushchenko, both of whom made clear their aspiration to take Ukraine into Nato, to promote the reforms required to turn that aspiration into reality. But when the administration of ousted pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovich opted for non-aligned status in 2010, Nato “respected that decision and continued to work with Ukraine on reforms, at the government’s request.” Last week, Poroshenko said Ukraine had worked out a plan for the next six years to meet criteria for joining Nato and the European Union – both ideas anathema to Moscow. “Only then will the Ukrainian people decide on joining or not joining, in a referendum,” he said during a meeting with one of Ukraine’s closest allies, Lithuania’s president Dalia Grybauskaite. Linas Linkevicius, Lithuania’s foreign minister, who took part in the meetings in Kiev, describes Russia’s stance over Ukraine’s intention to join Nato as “unacceptable” “The time when one country said what other countries should not to do, what choice they need to make, is gone,” he told beyondbrics. “The possibility of this integration happening depends only on Ukraine and only on Nato,” he said. That is unlikely to be a view shared in the Kremlin. Many Ukrainians fear Moscow will do what it can to turn the crisis in eastern Ukraine into a long-term smouldering conflict, to convince Nato it should think twice about welcoming a country that is unable to control rebellious territories inside its own borders. In turn, that would increase the likelihood of further western sanctions against Russia. Linkevicius argues that Russia’s behaviour is “a road to nowhere.” “Russia is ruining its own economy. The exchange rate of the rouble is decreasing, investors are running away and access to the financial market is restricted. The sanctions are working,” he says. However, Lithuania does not expect any changes in Moscow’s approach. “It is not our intention to inflict pain. Our wish is to make them listen and to understand that what they are doing is unacceptable”, Linkevicius says. “But they continue to supply weapons and send fighters [to Ukraine] and deny that Russia is a part of the conflict. That’s why we should remain united to keep up the pressure. And I hope that they will change their mind one day… And I do not exclude additional sanctions [against Russia] if the situation deteriorates further,” Linkevicius says. Lithuania itself has reasons to be suspicious about increasing military activity in the Baltic Sea region. “I do not expect any conventional threats. But there are a lot of other methods with which to increase tensions. We have seen Russian aircraft flying close to our border, military activity in the sea, cyber activity. I cannot exclude any surprise actions being attempted by our neighbour, so we cannot relax,” Linkevicius says. Neighbouring Nordic countries are also on high alert, following increased activity by Russian warplanes, notes Vidar Helgesen, minister of EEA and EU affairs at Norway’s foreign ministry. “We have seen Russia increasing its military activity not over the past year, but over the past decade. We are seeing a more assertive Russia which is undergoing military modernisation,” he says. However, Helgesen stops short of describing the current tensions as a new Cold War. “I don’t think that is a good parallel, because there are so many things that are different. The world is different. Global power distribution is different. There is no prominent east-west dimension as there was during the Cold War. There is also a different level of economic integration between Russia and the rest of Europe. Russia today is something different from the Soviet Union,” he says.