On a recent podcast episode of “The Eastern Front,” Giselle Donnelly, Iulia Joja, and Dalibor Rohac were joined by Dominik Jankowski, Head of the Political Section at the Permanent Delegation of the Republic of Poland to NATO, to discuss NATO’s upcoming Spring Meetings and their implications. The conversation below is a lightly edited transcript from the interview. You may access the full podcast episode here.

Iulia Joja: Two months into the second Russian invasion of Ukraine and
just a few months ahead of the NATO Madrid Summit (where the alliance’s new Strategic
Concept is due to be adopted), where is NATO headed? Will the summit just be
about Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to NATO? What are the prospects for
Ukraine?

Dominik
Jankowski: Tough questions. I do believe that the NATO Madrid Summit will not
only be about Finland and Sweden. It will be primarily about NATO’s response to
Russia’s war in a twofold sense. First, there is the deterrence and defense
element: how to increase the alliance’s military posture on NATO’s eastern
flank from the Baltic states, through Poland down to the Black Sea, where the decision
has already been taken on four additional battle groups. My sense is that we
will see decisions that will strengthen NATO presence and make it a permanent
one—not only deterring potential threats but defending us against threats that are
already present.

Second, there
is the question of what NATO collectively could do for Ukraine. I think that we
could be doing more. Hopefully, the NATO Madrid Summit will be a point where we
will offer Ukraine a long-term plan for reconstruction and rebuilding of its
military. Of course, this is dependent on how the war will continue. However, the
NATO Madrid Summit should reassure Ukraine that there’s a very clear transatlantic
path if Ukraine wishes to take it in the coming months or years.

Giselle Donnelly: I would like to push you on that a bit. The results of
the battle of Kyiv and now the opening moves in the Donbas make it apparent
that Ukraine’s military is in better shape than even the most optimistic among
us imagined. Some center-of-the-road political figures have come out explicitly
in favor of Ukraine and accession to NATO, and in pretty short order. There
could be a stronger push from Washington to make the offer more explicit and
more urgent than the normal NATO process, which can be a slow and tedious
affair. Do you think, if we just stipulate a strong push from Washington, that it
would be possible to really make Ukraine’s accession happen in a timely fashion
and in a way that would make a genuine strategic difference?

Dominik
Jankowski: This is one of the most difficult questions that we must face in the
coming months. I do believe that a stronger push from Washington will be an
important element in that discussion, but I do suspect that it might not be
enough to change the current level of consensus. There are countries in Western
Europe which still do oppose Ukraine’s accession—and not only Ukraine’s
accession, but also Georgian accession—to NATO. And I don’t think this war has
changed their views—maybe even to the contrary. But this doesn’t mean that we
shouldn’t be pushing. I think that, to the contrary, this war is just an additional
element of confirmation that bringing those countries to this alliance is
something that we should continue to do.

I remember
2019 and discussion around the Brussels Summit. Back then, the US
administration basically was pushing for that solution. “Okay, let’s skip
the membership action plan and bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO.”
Several allies from Western Europe opposed to that. I would say what is needed
for sure is a very clear, strong US commitment—a real commitment. Not only
verbal commitment to open doors and the 2008 Bucharest Summit positions, but to
basically make it happen.

The only
caveat that I’m going to make is that we need to see what the Ukrainians are
going to tell us in a few weeks. The same goes for Georgians. There is a change
of mood in Tbilisi. This is what we hear. This is what we feel.

Dalibor Rohac: We would be remiss not to bring up the role of Germany in
these conversations. Obviously, there is a lot of pressure on Germany right
now. The signals we are receiving from Berlin are mixed, starting with a recent
interview with the German Chancellor where he stressed the need to avoid
further escalation between NATO and Russia. Do you think the pressure being put
on German government is enough to push Germans in the right direction?

Dominik
Jankowski: We need to continue to exercise pressure on Germany, but also the
other Western European allies, to continue to provide weapons to Ukraine. There
are some really good examples and recent decisions, including by the Dutch
government, including by the Canadian government, where we see a change of thinking
towards providing weapons to Ukraine. We do see that the Ukrainian Armed Forces
is extremely professional. They’re well trained. They know what they’re doing.
And they are also able to easily adapt to the new situation and new weapons. So
it makes sense to provide weapons to them.

But it’s not
only about providing weapons. I think the second biggest question, when it
comes to Germany, is to continue to sanction the Russian and Belarusian economies.
I think the divide is internal in the EU, mostly because the decisions in the United
States, in the UK, and in Canada have already been made. We do believe that far-reaching
sanctions on the Russian economy, especially on the energy sector—first and
foremost oil and gas—should be taken without any delay.

We are now seeing countries that are normally not keen to weigh in on sanctions, including the French, favoring sanctioning the Russian energy sector, especially oil where most of the revenue is coming from. So I think it’s doable. Let’s continue with that pressure.

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