Why Ukraine chose NATO and not Russian CSTO?

In case you did not know, there is an organisation, similar to NATO, but lead by Russia. And it’s called CSTO.

Why did Ukraine chose NATO over CSTO (read — Russia)? Are they really equivalent?

Ukraine was neutral

Prior to 2014 Ukraine was a neutral country. Yes it’s true that there were some talks in 2008 about NATO and Ukraine. But it’s also true that there was a Russian military naval base in Ukrainian Crimea. None of these facts are really neutral, but they kind of level each other, and I would argue that Russian military base even trumps vague talks.

Neutrality (or at least no NATO membership) can be seen in the election campaigns of the two pre-2014 presidents. 2004 president Yushchenko promised this in his election campaign [1]:

Відносини з Росією будуть взаємовигідними, дружніми і стабільними.

Relations with Russia will be mutually beneficial, friendly and stable.

Nothing about neutrality, but Russia is mentioned separately (not the West). The 2010 president Yanukovich was more exact [2]:

Головним завданням національної зовнішньої політики вважаю збереження позаблокового статусу України

I consider the preservation of the non-aligned status of Ukraine to be the main task of the national foreign policy

Ukrainians were fine with neutrality. They were not even choosing between NATO and Russia (CSTO) in the first place.

Russia invades Ukraine in 2014 and in 2022

There is one non-written rule in the international relations:

If you want to have good relations with a country, don’t start a war with them

In 2014 Russia broke this rule. It annexed Crimea and started the hybrid war on Donbas. After Crimea was annexed, it would be very strange for Ukraine to even consider membership in some Russia-promoted organisation.

If Russia was afraid for the lives of Crimean people — it could be done differently. The invasion was bloodless and they did not have to annex the territory after that. They could show themselves as a peacekeeping forces. But they decided to annex the territory and send Russian troops to Donbas to fight Ukrainian army. The choice NATO-CSTO was a non-choice for Ukraine after these events. And when Poroshenko came to power in 2014 he insisted on putting the NATO-membership aim into the constitution and succeeded.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 — with many more soldiers, tanks and rockets. After this support for NATO membership sky-rocketed and is now at the level of 83% [3].

I guess if NATO attacked Ukraine, the situation would be opposite and Ukraine would seek support in CSTO — that would be logical thing to do.

Is CSTO even viable?

CSTO is not a viable alternative to NATO. And not only because it’s much smaller and weaker. Next are several facts which show how toothless the organisation is.

Russia did not intervene into the Armenian — Azerbaijan conflict over the Karabakh area. This could have been explained that under the international law Karabakh is a territory of Azerbaijan, so Armenia was not attacked. However even when Armenian territory was attacked in 2022 — Russia only expressed their concerns.

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan had a military conflict with each other in 2022, about hundred military servicemen died. Both are members of CSTO, which looks pretty strange. Russia did not intervene.

Moreover when Russia, which is a head of CSTO, attacked Ukraine, no other CSTO country provided them with assistance, except for Belarus, which still did not agree to physically step into the Ukrainian territory.

What would NATO do in similar situations? If Estonia was attacked, would US soldiers fight there? If Hungary attacked Slovakia — what would the NATO reaction? I don’t know. What I know is that Ukraine — not being a NATO member, gets lots of assistance from the NATO members. So it’s possible that NATO would intervene if Estonia was indeed attacked.

If someone calls NATO a paper tiger, then I even don’t know how to call the CSTO. Tiger out of smoke? Moreover their flag is just a soviet-styled rip-off from the NATO one.

Conclusion

Ukraine was a neutral country before 2014 with good relations with Russia. Russia attacked Ukraine, so entering NATO was a logical wish for Ukraine (especially when Russians said that they could not attack Baltic countries, because they were under NATO umbrella). Russian CSTO is a joke and is incomparable with NATO, so it cannot be considered a NATO alternative. Ukraine cannot even theoretically choose between NATO and Russia, since the correct choice is so obvious.

[1] Yushchenko programme: https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2004/07/9/3001064/

[2] Yanukovich programme (pdf in Ukrainian, search 7th point): https://www.cvk.gov.ua/pls/vp2010/WP0095eaf.html

[3] https://ratinggroup.ua/en/research/ukraine/dinam_ka_zovn_shno-pol_tichnih_nastro_v_naselennya_1-2_zhovtnya_2022.html

Flag of CSTO taken from Wikipedia (public domain): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Collective_Security_Treaty_Organization.png