The historic summit between NATO leaders in the Lithuanian capital began on Tuesday, July 11th, with allies touting “unprecedented unity” after Turkish President Erdoğan announced that he’s finally giving the green light to Sweden’s membership bid the evening before.
Yesterday, we published a detailed “what to expect” piece with all the relevant themes ahead of the summit, so now let’s see what was actually discussed on the first day in Vilnius.
No invitation to Ukraine
It was no secret that Kyiv expected the Summit to end with a formal invitation to join the military alliance within a specified timeframe and to be provided with a detailed roadmap leading to full membership. But as we also predicted, this was wishful thinking from the start, because NATO’s primary responsibility is its own security, which also means not admitting any country that’s in conflict—whether hot or cold.
Still, NATO Secretary-General promised during the early hours that whatever resolution will be passed, it will send “a positive and strong message” on Ukraine’s eventual membership.
Instead, the final communique agreed on by the member states used deliberately vague language, only stating that NATO “will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine when allies agree and conditions are met.”
Zelensky raging on Twitter
Understandably, President Zelensky, who was also present, was not at all pleased that he didn’t receive an invitation to the ball, expressing his anger on Twitter mid-summit, saying that Ukraine “deserves respect.”
“It’s unprecedented and absurd when time frame is not set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership. While at the same time vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine,” Zelensky wrote.
“It seems there is no readiness neither to invite Ukraine to NATO nor to make it a member of the Alliance,” he added.
Let Ukraine skip the waiting list?
Nonetheless, NATO allies formally agreed on letting Ukraine skip joining the Membership Action Plan (MAP), a program that provides and tracks certain economic, political, and military criteria for candidate countries, which has been completed by every new member since the end of the Cold War.
According to Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Ukraine is much closer to NATO now than other Eastern European countries were in the ‘90s, so “the time has come to reflect that in the NATO decisions.” The allies did not come to a conclusion about Ukraine’s MAP requirement on the first day, but this may change on the second.
Weapons galore
As expected, some NATO allies arrived bearing gifts, pledging increased financial and military assistance to Ukraine. The most anticipated new package was unveiled by Germany, which will be sending €700 million worth of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine shortly, including two Patriot launchers, 25 Leopard tanks, 40 infantry fighting vehicles, and some 20,000 rounds of artillery ammo.
Norway, a non-EU member, promised even more, increasing its planned military aid to Ukraine for 2023 to a total of 10 billion Norwegian Kroner (nearly $960 million). Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre also said Norway will be providing over $7.2 billion in financial aid to Ukraine over the course of the next five years.
The biggest surprise, however, was France, whose Emmanuel Macron announced that Paris is ready to deliver SCALP (or Storm Shadow) long-range autonomous missile systems to Ukraine. SCALP missiles have an effective firing range of 250 km, which is almost as potent as the 300 km range of the U.S.-made ATACMS that Kyiv has been asking for over the past month.
Of course, Russia is not happy about Ukraine’s shiny French toys. “Naturally, this will force us to take countermeasures,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in response.
Turkey rewarded with jets
Erdoğan definitely seems like the surprise hero of this summit for finally agreeing to lift his veto on Sweden’s NATO accession. But it also seems like he got what he wanted in return: the U.S. allowing Turkey to buy its fourth-generational F-16 fighter jets at last—without “caveats or conditions.”
According to U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, President Biden has been “clear and unequivocal” in his support for the move “and he intends to move forward with that transfer in consultation with Congress.”
So far, the U.S. Senate has been opposed to selling F-16s to Turkey over concerns that it would use them to harass Greece, another NATO member, but it appears the sale is finally happening whether Athens likes it or not.
No sign of nukes or Wagner in Belarus
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg condemned Russia’s decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus which was announced in March, saying that NATO monitors the situation closely. However, he added, so far there is no sign that the transfers had begun, despite Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claiming they did in May.
The nuclear threat is not the only thing that turns out to be a dud in Belarus, as Stoltenberg said NATO has not noticed any deployment or movement of Wagner forces in the country yet, despite Eastern European countries believing that at least 8,000 troops joined the mutinous oligarch, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who may or may not be in exile there.
Whatever the truth, Belarus’ immediate neighbors Lithuania and Poland moved into a heightened state of readiness in the past two weeks. Vilnius finally got the 4,000 German troops it has been asking for lately, and Poland moved over 1,000 soldiers and 200 mechanized equipment units to its border with Belarus.
“Anti-Russian sentiments”
According to the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who stated the obvious, the contents of the NATO Summit demonstrate a strong “anti-Russian” attitude among the member states.
“We are talking about a summit of an alliance that has a pronounced concentrated anti-Russian nature,” Peskov said, adding that “Russia is perceived as an enemy, an adversary.”
Peskov also stressed that Ukraine’s eventual NATO accession would be “highly dangerous for European security,” and that NATO members should consider the risk associated with such a step.
U.S. war crime is just “temporary”
Washington also tried to clear its name with regard to the latest controversial decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, a type of weapon that has been outlawed by 123 countries, including almost every NATO country, but not the U.S.
According to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, sending cluster munitions is okay because it’s only a temporary measure, which will end once the U.S. gets its near-depleted stockpiles of regular ammunition up again.
“We were not prepared to leave Ukraine defenseless, period,” Sullivan said. “Despite the risks of civilian harm associated with cluster munitions, the risk to civilian harm of leaving Ukraine without the ammo it needed was, from our perspective, greater.”
