From my very limited understanding of recent news, Trump’s stance on the conflict is going to be decisive in how peace is going to be negotiated one he takes office. One of the probabilities is going to involve the outcome where Ukraine can’t join NATO, which would risk Russia trying to take more of Ukraine in the future.
So, this is where my totally-not-stupid-whatsoever question comes in. What if NATO were to occupy Ukraine similarly to how Russia is doing (that is, without Ukraine really doing anything to provoke it) but, unlike Russia, doesn’t do any actual war stuff. Just walk in, say “it’s ours now ;)”, and have Ukraine take it without there being a fight. Without there being any intention of actually changing anything. Just one day most of Ukraine’s taken by NATO, business going on as usual.
If American negotiations were to conclude that Russia can only keep what it captured and Ukraine cannot join NATO, then only all of Ukraine that didn’t get captured by Russia or NATO, say, 10km (just inventing numbers here) of land between the two’s occupied territory would be prevented from joining NATO. That way, future Russia would “only” be able to capture a remaining “10km” (which is not how area size works, but hope you get the point) at most. The majority of the country would effectively have the NATO protection it wants (or, if I’m mistaken, replace NATO with any other military alliance Ukraine would want to join).
Now, seeing as this clearly isn’t policy (it were, it could’ve been enacted during times where Ukraine was said to be gaining territory back rather than losing it again), I’m obviously missing something in this “analysis”. That’s where you come in, dear reader.
NATO isn’t an army, it’s a defense pact. Member countries can’t just launch an attack against a non-member country (especially to “protect” said non-member).
Alright. Lets say Zelinskyy and NATO have a closed door discussion, and they decide Ukraine was going to “war” against NATO.
That war? It’s Zelinskyy taking off a white glove, and using it to slap the leader of any NATO country. Just a slap in the face of a white glove, and now all of NATO needs to protect the attacked nation.
or, if I’m mistaken, replace NATO with any other military alliance Ukraine would want to join
This is essentially what the Ukraine EU accession talks are about. The EU is the military alliance they want to join, and it is actually even more protective than the NATO.
So the question isn’t stupid, Ukraine actually wants this, the EU is of two minds about it so far.
At best you’d end up with the Cuban missile crisis in reverse.
It could be done, but it could even more easily be done to just say Ukrane is part of NATO, and NATO will intervene if necessary to prevent further territory loss. The result would be the same. Putin doesn’t care about the theatrics. He just wants the Ukrainian identity destroyed and the land to be considered Russian. It doesn’t matter to him how NATO is involved beyond how much of a threat they are.
