As the Ukraine peace talks begin to take shape, the enduring issue of Ukraine’s security remains unresolved and pressing. The complexities surrounding Kyiv’s precarious geopolitical position highlight the necessity of a robust, enduring solution to safeguard its sovereignty – and this is already manifest in the Ukraine government’s negotiating posture.

In the context of recent history, it is not surprising that NATO membership has emerged as the only credible source of the kinds of security guarantees Ukraine seeks. Previous attempts by Western nations to secure Ukraine have fallen short of deterring aggression and ensuring long-term stability; for example, the denuclearization guarantees under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which were supposed to preclude the very kind of conflict that we now see playing out. NATO membership on the other hand, with its foundational principle of collective defense articulated in Article 5, represents a more ironclad security assurance, one that is unmatched by any other international agreement or institution. NATO is thus viewed not as a strategic option, but as a necessity for Kyiv.

This of course is all hypothetical. Whatever the desire, practical realities continue to stand in the way of Ukraine’s dream of NATO membership. This article explores how NATO figures so prominently in Kyiv’s quest for security, and what an eventual compromise could look like.

A longstanding quest for security

The ongoing Ukraine war is not a recent development, but rather is part of a long historical continuum that dates back to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

After Ukraine achieved independence, it inherited the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, which became a central element in Ukraine’s early security strategy. Kyiv sought to leverage these weapons in exchange for concrete security guarantees from the West, especially the United States.