NATO and military assistance to Ukraine

The alliance has appointed a veteran UK civil servant and former NATO official to the new post of Senior Representative in Ukraine, starting in September

One of the less eye-catching administrative decisions approved at the recent NATO summit in Washington DC was the Secretary General’s appointment of a “NATO Senior Representative in Ukraine”. This figure would, in the words of US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, “serve as the focal point for NATO’s engagement with senior Ukrainian officials” and “deepen Ukraine’s institutional relationship with the alliance”. The post will be based in Kyiv and will effectively act as the link between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government and the alliance.

I first examined the idea of this appointment when it surfaced in the media in June. I noted it would be modelled on the position of NATO Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan, and acknowledged there were two schools of thought. The first was that it was a positive and potentially beneficial administrative development which would create more structured co-operation between Ukraine and NATO and was welcome on that basis. The second, articulated by an anonymous NATO source quoted by Robbie Gramer in an article in Foreign Policy, was that it was more like displacement activity, a rather hollow gesture intended to cover up for a lack of more significant support.

It’s part of a consolation prize we’re all trying to craft. It’s another example of things we are doing in lieu of what Ukraine actually wants us to do.

I’m always aware that a cynical explanation for any political development may well have a degree of truth in it. On the other hand, while support for Ukraine has sometimes been more qualified and faltering than one might like, and is hugely contingent on the outcome of November’s American presidential election, NATO has announced a Pledge of Long-Term Security Assistance for Ukraine worth €40 billion a year and has stated, first in Vilnius last year and then again in Washington, that Ukraine will become a member of NATO in the long term and is regarded as a valuable ally. My conclusion, then was this:

It is better, I think, to see the nomination of a “special envoy” as a modest but useful step both in political and administrative terms. If NATO chooses the right person, he or she could be a vital public face of Western support for Ukraine, a reassurance to Zelenskyy’s government that NATO’s commitment remains strong and a voice to counter Russia’s consistent propaganda on the causes, direction and likely outcome of the war.

However, I reiterated that this was a modest administrative issue, and that NATO’s relationship with Ukraine, at least in the short term, was dependent on getting sufficient equipment and ammunition to Kyiv.

We should not lose sight of the fact that the decisive factor in Ukraine’s war against Russia, in terms of those which NATO can influence, will be equipment and ammunition: it is a numbers game. Ukraine needs artillery rounds, missiles, air-defence systems and combat aircraft.

When I reviewed the Washington summit earlier this month, I argued that the identity of the NATO representative would be central to the creation of the post making a significant difference. A senior and able figure could make a real difference to the way in which military assistance is delivered, as well as deepening the political ties between NATO and the Ukrainian government.

The man chosen to be NATO Senior Representative in Ukraine is Patrick Turner. He spent 30 years in the UK civil service, principally at the Ministry of Defence, and has an impressively broad experience of defence and foreign policy issues. He was in charge of implementing the 1998 Strategic Defence Review and writing its post-9/11 “New Chapter”, and oversaw the 2006 White Paper on the future of the UK’s independent nuclear deterrent. He then moved to the Cabinet Office as head of the UK National Security Strategy Team and produced the first National Security Strategy which was published by Gordon Brown’s government in 2008. From 2008 to 2010 he was Minister Counsellor for Defence at the British Embassy in Washington, before serving as UK Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO 2011-15.

In 2015, Turner moved to Brussels as NATO Assistant Secretary General for Operations. From 2018 to 2022, he served as Assistant Secretary General for Defence Planning and Policy, before leaving to move to the private sector and founding his own defence and security consultancy. He has also worked as a senior adviser for the Cohen Group, a Washington-based consultancy. His pedigree is, therefore, impeccable and includes an enormous number of key policy issues which will stand him in excellent stead in his new role.

It can sometimes be difficult to make an exact assessment of UK civil servants, given that policy responsibility and public presentation lie with ministers. However, there are indications that he will be a resolute advocate for Ukraine’s cause and a tough representative of the alliance. He has written or spoken interestingly about the complexities of defence planning and policy in March 2008, in his last weeks as Director of Policy Planning at the Ministry of Defence, and again in January 2020 when he was NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Planning and Policy. This suggests he has a good grasp of strategic matters.

Earlier this year Turner spoke at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, and he was extremely outspoken in his support for Ukraine. He was explicit that was not doing as much as it could.

It’s time to get real. The West has absolutely no strategy to win in Ukraine. The ‘as long as it takes’ approach to the Ukraine war needs to be replaced with ‘whatever it takes’.

Interviewed by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty earlier this month, he was more emollient, for political reasons, and played up the solidity of NATO’s support. “I am rather confident,” he concluded, “that irrespective of the outcome of the US election, there will be good support for NATO”. But he was also uncompromising about the necessary preconditions for the conflict in Ukraine coming to an end.

The friends of Ukraine, NATO allies, the summit this week, have said we will never recognise Russian annexations in Ukraine. So not Crimea, not the Donbas, not territory currently occupied beyond the Donbas. So we will never recognise [Russian annexations].

The circumstances under which the conflict will end are deeply contentious. Last summer, as the Ukrainian counter-attack was beginning, I wrote about the conflicting imperatives which are at play. Essentially one can sum it up like this: an outright Ukrainian victory seems inconceivable, while an outright Russian victory is unacceptable. Logically, those two polar opposites point to some kind of negotiated settlement with Russia retaining some of the territory it has seized; however, it is easy to see the intellectual argument that this would send a signal to the world that larger countries could invade their smaller neighbours, annex some of their territory and have those illegal gains recognised by the international community. That is a very bitter pill to swallow.

Even if negotiations over an end to the conflict do lie in the future, it is a defensible position for NATO’s man on the ground to take that there cannot be any territorial concessions: after all, it is easy to begin with a fundamentalist position and gradually give ground as part of a discussion than it is to begin suggesting you are flexible and then attempt to become more resolute.

We will see what happens after Turner takes up his post in Kyiv in September, but I am encouraged by his selection. He is experienced, intelligent and dedicated, and his appointment has been widely welcomed. If Jens Stoltenberg was not going to appoint a high-profile “political celebrity” as NATO representative—someone like former UK defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace, retired commander of United States Army Europe Lieutenant General Ben Hodges or United States Agency for International Development administrator Samantha Power, off the top of my head—then Turner is a solid pick. His role could be influential but is unlikely to be decisive: the immediate priority of helping Ukraine maintain its defence depends on getting materiel to the armed forces. But it is possible that Sir Davod Brailsford’s philosophy of “marginal gains” will apply here, and perhaps Turner’s presence will be one of those gains.