Ukraine Pitches Neutrality to End War With Russia — What Would it Entail?

This won't be Kyiv's first taste of neutrality. It was neutral from 1991 till 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea.

Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

(Photo: Namita Chauhan/The Quint)

During negotiations with their Russian counterparts in Istanbul, Turkey, the delegation of Ukraine proposed a permanent neutrality status in exchange for security guarantees, in an effort to end the war against Russia.

Ukraine's pitch for neutrality, proposed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is the first time it has put forth a detailed and concrete resolution to the war, which began as a Russian invasion launched on 24 February under the orders of President Vladimir Putin.

Kyiv has even conceded that it does not want to retake the Crimean Peninsula (annexed by Russia in 2014), and its status can be negotiated and resolved over the next 15 years.

What exactly does this mean, to be a "neutral" country? What would Ukraine have to do to attain its neutrality status?

The Meaning of Neutrality in International Politics

The term "neutrality" has a lot of components, but an overarching definition of the same concerns a pledge that nations take by which they must not support any belligerents during a war.

A neutral country is most often referred to as those countries which are permanently neutral in all conflicts.

Some of the several components of neutrality are:

• Not engaging in a war on the side of either belligerent

• Not entering military alliances

• Not sending weapons or any form of military aid to either belligerent

• Interning soldiers of warring countries if they enter the neutral country

• Not allowing its territorial waters for use of warships by belligerents

Countries like Switzerland and Sweden have been neutral for hundreds of years.

In the case of the former, Switzerland maintained armed neutrality during both the World Wars. It kept its troops on alert and its weapons ready in case it got invaded, but it did not side with any of the alliances during both wars.

The rules for neutral countries during war were established by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 that were signed in The Netherlands.

What Would a Neutral Ukraine Entail?

The most recent negotations between the delegations of Russia and Ukraine have made observers and analysts more optimistic about the chances of a ceasefire.

Ukraine's neutrality seems to be non-negotiable for Russia, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has finally brought it to the negotiating table.

"Security guarantees and neutrality, non-nuclear status of our state. We are ready to go for it. This is the most important point," the president said on 28 March, as reported by Reuters.

This announcement came on day 33 of the war. Zelenskyy, however, did add that a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops were his non-negotiable conditions.

Ukrainian neutrality would essentially mean that it would, once and for all, give up its desire to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and thereby eliminate any possibility of hosting NATO troops on Ukrainian soil.

It would also mean that it remains neutral if at all there is any conflict between Russia and NATO, or Russia and any European country.

This should result in the Kremlin providing security guarantees to Ukraine, that is, it will promise to not attack Ukraine in any way whatsoever (military invasion or cyberattacks etc).

Neutral Ukraine From 1991-2014

This won't be Ukraine's first taste of neutrality. When the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, its Declaration of Independence stated that it would seek to become "a permanently neutral state" that will refrain from joining military alliances.

The Ukrainian Constitution also contained these basic principles of future neutrality.

That was the status quo for 23 years, until Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. When Putin's "little green men" took control of government buildings in Crimea, leading to the referendum that voted to make it a federal subject of Moscow, that is when Ukraine relinquished its status as a neutral nation.

A vote took place in parliament that culminated in Ukraine giving up its pledge of not joining any military alliance.

That set the ball rolling for the controversy surrounding Ukraine's potential NATO membership, something that the Kremlin was repeatedly warning against in the days that built up to the Russian invasion.

Ukraine's relinquishment of neutrality in 2014 was deemed "unfriendly" by Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had said at the time that the move "escalates confrontations and creates the illusion that the profound internal crisis in Ukraine can be resolved through the adoption of such laws," as quoted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The Problem of Trust

While Ukraine pledging a neutral status may put an end to the violence, it is hard to see how both Ukraine and the West will trust Russia to keep its security guarantees.

There two aspects in this regard-

Firstly, as Mark Kramer of Harvard University said while speaking to Vox, "there were probably at least a dozen international agreements that Russia signed with Ukraine that did commit Russia to respecting Ukraine’s December 1991 borders, yet, the Russian government has shown no importance to adhering to those obligations."

One such agreement is the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, by which Ukraine sacrificed its nuclear weapons in exchange for Russia (and the US and the UK) agreeing to "respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine."

The second issue is Putin's attitude towards the terms of neutrality. While neutral countries are allowed to maintain troops, the objective of the Kremlin's "demilitarisation" operation, albeit unclear at the moment, might be to limit the number of weapons and troops that Ukraine possesses.

It is unreasonable to expect such a capitulation from Ukraine, given that it has been fighting a war with a nuclear superpower for more than a month.

Any move that limits Ukraine's military may have to be compensated by a guarantee of collective defence by Western Europe and the US (like NATO Article 5). Russia will, without a doubt, protest against any such guarantee.

In conclusion, while discussions around neutrality may give us hope for peace in the near future, the devil remains in the details.

The terms of neutrality and Russia adhering to those terms will determine the course of post-war hostilities.

(With inputs from Reuters and Vox)