The persistent debate about NATO’s role in the Ukraine conflict centres on Russia’s longstanding objection to the alliance’s expansion, which Moscow views as a threat. This historical stance is a crucial part of understanding the dynamics of the ongoing conflict, as both sides acknowledge the centrality of Ukraine’s potential NATO membership in influencing the invasion and shaping the geopolitical landscape.

Australian Outlook has recently published a number of pieces critical of the idea that the threat of NATO expansion was responsible for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These pieces were prompted by an earlier article by Tom Switzer. The origins of the conflict clearly remain an issue of major debate. But in this debate, those who dispute the importance of NATO expansion rarely interrogate the evidence relating to the fear of Ukraine joining NATO. They usually simply reject the idea out of hand and assert a culturalist explanation (Russians are inherently expansionist) or say it was all due to Vladimir Putin who has a hatred of Ukrainians and always had a desire to eliminate the Ukrainian state. This is unsatisfactory. Those who dispute that NATO had any part in the Russian decision to invade need to address a number of questions:

Why, on the eve of the invasion, did Putin propose to the NATO powers a security arrangement that, inter alia, involved Ukrainian neutrality (ie. not becoming a member of NATO)? This was presented as an explicit condition for not invading........

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