The leaders of NATO are gathering for a summit in Washington D.C. to celebrate the transatlantic alliance’s 75th anniversary. The three-day summit, which begins on Tuesday, July 9th, is expected to conclude with a pledge for more military assistance to Ukraine while member states will attempt to display unity at a time of great geopolitical uncertainty.
Ukraine, which has been at war with Russia for almost two-and-a-half years, is expected to get “good news” at the summit, according to a senior U.S. State Department official, who last week told Reuters there would be “some new announcements on air defense.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is attending the meeting in Washington D.C., has been calling for NATO member states to provide air defence systems for the Ukrainians to be able to defend against missile and drone attacks from Russian forces. Kyiv has also pointed to its lack of air superiority as a major factor limiting its army’s ability to advance on the battlefield.
The United States is reportedly considering donating another Patriot system, one of the only systems capable of downing Russia’s most advanced missiles. Ukraine is currently in possession of at least two Patriot missile defence systems—one that was donated by the United States, and another that was provided in partnership between Germany and the Netherlands.
The U.S. has allocated €74 billion worth of financial, military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion, and pledged a further €25 billion, according to the Kiel Institute, which tracks donations. European countries have given €102 billion and have promised to provide a further €76 billion. The United States is by far the largest single donating country, providing €50.2 billion worth of military assistance. Next in line is Germany (€10.2 billion), the United Kingdom (€8.8 billion), Denmark (€5.6 billion) and the Netherlands (€4.3 billion).
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that contributions of €40 billion per year for the Ukrainian military should be the “baseline”—a sum that member states may agree on at the summit. Most NATO countries are adamant that Ukraine should receive all the help it needs to push back Russian troops who have made significant battlefield gains over the past several months.
Until now, NATO as an organisation has focused on non-lethal aid for Ukraine due to fears that a more direct role could trigger an escalation of tensions with Russia. Its members have provided arms on a bilateral basis. Jens Stoltenberg’s proposal would give the Western alliance a more direct role in coordinating the supply of arms, ammunition, and equipment to Ukraine.
However, Ukraine will not get any closer to NATO membership—many member states are not keen on accepting a country that is at war, knowing it would further provoke Russia which has cited NATO’s eastward expansion as a threat to its security. Last year’s NATO summit in Lithuania concluded with a joint statement, saying NATO “will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine when allies agree and conditions are met.” Volodymyr Zelensky called the declaration “absurd,” saying “there is no readiness to make Ukraine a member of the Alliance.”
According to media reports, this year’s wording will be a slight improvement over last year’s and will declare that Ukraine is on an “irreversible path” to NATO membership. U.S. officials have said the summit will offer Ukraine a “bridge to membership.”
According to U.S. media reports, a lot of the focus on the summit will be on U.S. President Joe Biden, who has been displaying signs of frailness and mental decline in recent months. There is growing pressure on the 81-year-old politician to drop out of the presidential campaign, but he has maintained that he is physically and mentally fit enough to run the country. Jens Stoltenberg sidestepped questions on Friday about Joe Biden’s health, saying “One of the reasons why NATO is successful is that we have always stayed out of domestic political issues.”
The leftist-liberal political elites in Europe are already sounding the alarm about former President Donald Trump’s potential return to the White House after November’s presidential elections. Trump has criticised NATO’s European members in recent years, complaining that they were not contributing enough to NATO expenditures. His rhetoric has angered some of his allies but, in reality, his tough attitude has resulted in allied countries spending more on their own defence.
A Trump campaign spokesman told Reuters: “We had four years of peace and prosperity under President Trump, but Europe saw death and destruction under Obama-Biden and now more death and destruction under Biden. President Trump got our allies to increase their NATO spending by demanding they pay up.”
Another question looming over the summit is how Trump would manage Ukraine. The former president said he would seek to negotiate peace so the war comes to an end as soon as possible. His Republican allies in the U.S. Congress, who are also not keen on forever funding the war, delayed a $60 billion aid package to Kyiv for months. A recent article by Politico claims that Trump would like a swift resolution to the conflict by committing to no further eastward expansion of NATO—meaning no membership for Ukraine—and negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin over how much Ukrainian territory Moscow can keep.
With regards to Russia and the upcoming NATO summit, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday said NATO “is an alliance that considers Russia an enemy, an opponent.” NATO “has regularly declared its aim to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield” and “is taking part directly in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of Ukraine,” he added.
Meanwhile, China and Belarus started joint military exercises just a few kilometres away from the border of NATO-member Poland on Monday. “Events taking place in the world are alarming, the situation is uneasy, therefore we are going to practice new forms and methods of performing tactical tasks,” Major General Vadim Denisenko, chief of the Belarusian special operations command said. Belarus allowed Russia to use its territory as one of the launchpads for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
