Whilst Ukraine continues to struggle with various internal issues, its ongoing reforms have sent a clear message regarding its desires for western integration. The EU and NATO must now recognise Kyiv’s ambitions and respond in an equally enthusiastic manner.

Prior to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House, there were a number of statements, innuendos and high hopes. Lots of efforts were taken by the Ukrainian side to have this long-awaited meeting happen despite current geopolitical challenges. But how is Ukraine prepared to access NATO/EU structures now? Will this meeting have a positive impact for Ukraine on its Euro-Atlantic integration path?

The future of NATO’s nuclear sharing programme in Central and Eastern Europe is closely connected to the political relationship between Washington, Berlin and Warsaw. Dimensions such as geopolitics and infrastructure must also be taken into account.  

The Eastern flank of the NATO alliance might well be safer than ever before in a physical sense. However, warfare through information means, social and economic matters internally and geopolitical shifts externally could eventually lead to more troubling changes down the line.

Nowhere should NATO’s 360-degree approach to security be more vigilant than on the Alliance’s Eastern flank. It stems both from Russia’s aggressive behaviour towards NATO and from the size and geographical proximity of the Russian troops deployed near the member states’ borders. This does not mean that NATO should not look elsewhere for possible threats. It just means that at present the threat in the Eastern flank is the most formidable one.

Finding a joint, NATO-wide stance on China is complicated by the fact that its perception as a threat varies not just among the Central and Eastern European NATO members but also across the Alliance. Just a handful of NATO members have been looking beyond Europe’s immediate neighbourhood, or formulated a strategy for the Indo-Pacific region where the implications of China’s rise reign supreme.

An interview with Dr Gregory Simons, Associate Professor at Uppsala University, Sweden. Interviewer: Mario Giagnorio

Despite being at the political margins of Russia’s foreign policy, Sweden’s political élite is weighing the NATO option. Their choices in security will play an important role in the Baltic Sea area in terms of stability.

In the context of new levels of co-operation between western-aligned countries in the Black Sea region, NATO should focus on pursuing meaningful actions with regional partners that share its vision. At the same time, the Alliance should take advantage of every opportunity to make the region a platform for decreasing conflict and accommodating competing interests.

The recent NATO-Georgia Public Diplomacy Forum held in October 2019 rightly underlined the need for new ideas, skills and partnerships. It also stressed the need for viable security structures that are capable of meeting modern challenges. These needs are especially relevant when considering the current geopolitics and geoeconomics of the Black Sea region.

Gains of reform are threatened amid an exodus of Ukraine’s revolutionaries from patrol police. And failure to reform the upper echelons of the police could mean a return to the old corrupt and inefficient practices.

When Ukraine introduced a new and radically reimagined patrol police in 2015, Nazar Franchuk was one of the first to sign up. Franchuk, who spent the winter of 2013-2014 splitting his time between university exams and protesting in Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, wanted to bring his revolutionary energy to the new law enforcement body which was intended to replace the country’s notoriously corrupt police force.

An interview with Lieutenant General Sławomir Wojciechowski from NATO’s Multinational Corps Northeast. Interviewer: Jakub Bornio

JAKUB BORNIO: Both the status of the Multinational Corps and the international security environment is very different today from when the corps was created in 1999. How would you assess these changes?

SŁAWOMIR WOJCIECHOWSKI: Preparing for the 20th anniversary of the corps and examining its beginnings, I came across some documents that surprised me. It turned out that even though there has been a changing security dynamic, the unit that I have come to lead (since 2018 – editor’s note) has always had objectives that corresponded to the geographical location, being able to function on a defined area. At the time the threats associated with the region were perceived as very unlikely, and objectives outside of our region seemed more likely. The difference today is that we don’t speak of the same elements that were on the agenda back then, they have been somewhat erased. Today, we only speak of ensuring security for the region.

A review of The Shadow in the East. Vladimir Putin and the New Baltic Front. By: Aliide Naylor. Publisher: I.B. Tauris, London, 2020.

In the final episode of our special series on Black Sea security, Adam and Maciek discuss the most recent NATO meeting of heads of states in London.