NATO Looks to Create New Special Envoy Post in Ukraine

The NATO alliance is weighing plans to install a permanent new Ukraine envoy based in Kyiv as it looks to ramp up its long-term commitments to Ukraine amid the country’s war against Russia despite new warnings from Moscow about escalating the conflict, Western officials and U.S. congressional aides familiar with the matter confirmed to Foreign Policy.

The plan, which would be unveiled at the upcoming NATO summit in Washington in July if approved, would see the creation of a new NATO “senior civilian representative” post based in Ukraine, modeled after a similar post that NATO established in Afghanistan during its nearly two-decade engagement there. The new envoy would coordinate the alliance’s support for Ukraine, including the flows of military assistance to Kyiv from various Western countries.

The high-profile envoy post would also send a political message to both Ukraine and Russia about the alliance’s commitment to Kyiv’s fight as the Ukrainian government seeks permanent NATO membership to bulk up its protection against Russian military aggression.

The proposed move comes against the backdrop of broader debates among NATO member countries about whether to deploy their own troops to Ukrainian territory—a decision that would expedite the training and equipping of Ukrainian forces but that could also heighten the risk of the war in Ukraine expanding into a wider Western confrontation with Russia and even going nuclear.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned last week that the West could face “serious consequences” after the United States and some other major European powers gave Ukraine a green light to strike military targets inside Russian territory with Western-supplied weapons. “If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the United States behave, bearing in mind our parity in the field of strategic weapons?” Putin said in remarks to reporters, referring to U.S. and Russian nuclear capabilities. “It’s hard to say—do they want a global conflict?”

Some Western officials welcome the creation of a new envoy post as part of a bigger package of NATO support for Ukraine to be rolled out at the upcoming summit in Washington, aimed at reinforcing how the alliance will take a more formal role in coordinating Western support for Ukraine.

“We’re looking at ways to institutionalize some of the bilateral support that has flowed to Ukraine and put it into the NATO alliance, to bring greater coherence to that assistance and to ensure that there is adequate burden-sharing across the alliance in our collective support to Ukraine,” Julianne Smith, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, told reporters.

Yet other officials in NATO privately view the envoy role as part of a watered-down package that falls short of Kyiv’s main goal: to formally join the alliance itself.

“It’s part of a consolation prize we’re all trying to craft,” said one NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal NATO deliberations. “It’s another example of things we are doing in lieu of what Ukraine actually wants us to do.”

Asked for comment, a senior U.S. State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, said: “At this point we can confirm that a range of Ukraine deliverables are still being negotiated, but it would be premature to forecast any of the possible options while discussions are ongoing.”

Ukraine’s strongest supporters in Europe, especially Eastern European countries, had pushed for the country to get a formal invitation to join NATO as a full-fledged member at the upcoming summit, but the United States and Germany blocked that effort. The question of whether, and when, to invite Ukraine to join NATO and actually begin the process of admitting it remains a heated topic among alliance officials.

Some fear delaying Ukraine’s membership process will only reward and embolden Putin. Others say bringing Ukraine into NATO prematurely—and while it’s still waging a full-scale war of defense against the Russian invasion—will only accelerate a NATO-Russia confrontation that heightens the risk of full-scale nuclear conflict.

“You have also heard U.S. officials say that an invitation this summer will not be on the table,” Smith said. “That is unlikely, but we are focused on this package of support that will help us build the bridge to membership.”

The upcoming NATO summit is viewed as pivotal for the 32-member alliance, officials said. It will celebrate NATO’s 75th anniversary and serve as a high-profile checkpoint for alliance leaders’ push to boost defense spending and finalize detailed military plans for how to defend NATO territory if it’s attacked. Many Western officials believe that if Ukraine loses the war, Russia will set its sights on attacking NATO territory next, possibly in Poland or the Baltic states on the alliance’s vulnerable eastern flank.

Ukraine will be a top agenda item, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is planning to attend the summit, officials said. At a NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, last year, Zelensky made a last-minute push for a formal NATO membership invitation that was rebuffed, and he vented that there was “no readiness” for a timetable on his country joining the alliance.

The NATO summit in July also comes against the backdrop of the looming U.S. presidential election, and the prospect of former President Donald Trump possibly regaining the White House has rattled European allies who doubt he would carry on U.S. commitment and support for Ukraine and NATO in the face of the war. Some officials have characterized a raft of new proposals for Ukraine, including the new envoy role and a long-term NATO funding plan for the country, as a way to “Trump-proof” Western support for Ukraine, locking in commitments ahead of the U.S. elections in November.

In February, Trump at a rally in South Carolina said he would encourage the Russians to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies that don’t spend enough on defense. NATO set a benchmark for all of its members to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense. In 2014, just four countries met that benchmark. By the end of 2024, at least 20 and up to 23 of NATO’s 32 members could hit the 2 percent mark, U.S. and NATO officials said.

Smith said the boosted defense spending underscores continued Western commitments to Ukraine. “Putin started this war with the assumption that he could wait the alliance out, that allies would grow weary, that they would grow distracted, that they would grow impatient.”

“I can tell you, having just come off [a NATO foreign ministers meeting] in Prague … you do not get that impression when you sit in a room with 32 ministers around the table,” she said. “The question there in Prague was what more can we get into the hands of the Ukrainians and how fast can we send it.”