The NATO summit exceeds expectations, gives hope to Ukraine. Russia is preparing for a future conflict with NATO, ISW says. Ukraine stops Russian advances in Sumy region, Ukraine’s army chief says.
NATO summit exceeds expectations, gives hope to Ukraine
In a five-point declaration, NATO allies agreed to the 5 per cent of GDP military spending target by 2035.
To the surprise of many international media, the decisions that emerged from the alliance’s summit in The Hague were favorable for Ukraine, Ukrainian news site European Pravda said in an editorial Thursday. The following is an abridged version of the article that we translated into English.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyi was also a success. Zelenskyi took a step toward Trump, switching his typical khaki military-style long-sleeved tops for a more formal black suit-style jacket and shirt.
What became key element of Ukraine’s success happened ahead of the summit.
This year, the summit’s declaration stands out from the statements NATO issued in the past decades. The alliance abandoned a practice of adopting long documents and instead focused on a single topic that was at the center of the summit.
The gathering focused on defense spending — an internal matter that only affects the members, not partner countries.
In a decision which indicates increasing concern about Russia as a “long-term threat” to Euro-Atlantic security, there was also room for Ukraine.
Last month, when the allies only began to discuss the summit’s declaration, the U.S. insisted that there should be no mention of Ukraine, arguing that the summit doesn’t concern it. In a little more than a month, the U.S.’s position has considerably evolved. The final document states that military aid sent to Ukraine will count toward member country defense spending, and the U.S. endorsed it.
NATO was given a green light to give Ukraine hope for joining the bloc.
NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, began to say more frequently and clearly that Ukraine is on its irreversible path to NATO membership. He was making such remarks not only when responding to questions, but also when talking proactively.
The fact that Trump and his team made no comments or objections on that reconfirms that the U.S.’s position is shifting.
It explains why a mention of Ukraine was not vetoed by other members of the alliance, Hungary in the first place.
Hungary shapes its outlook based on views of the U.S. leadership, especially on those of the current U.S. administration.
Russia preparing for future conflict with NATO, ISW says
U.S. President Donald Trump stated that Russia may have territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine — consistent with ISW’s long-held assessments that Russia is preparing for a future conflict with NATO and setting conditions to justify future aggression against non-NATO former Soviet Union states, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in an update on Wednesday. The paragraphs below are quoted from the report.
A reporter asked Trump during a press conference at the NATO summit on June 25 whether it is possible that Russian President Vladimir Putin has territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine, and Trump responded that “it’s possible.”
ISW has long assessed that Russia is preparing its military and society for a possible future conflict with NATO following the conclusion of the war in Ukraine, including by pursuing military reforms; integrating veterans into all levels of Russian local, regional, and federal governments; and setting rhetorical conditions to justify future aggression against NATO. ISW has observed the Kremlin leverage the same rhetoric that it used against Ukraine before the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 to threaten NATO states. The Kremlin has also specifically weaponized the concept of “compatriots abroad” — Russian-speaking populations living outside of Russia, whom Russia claims it needs to protect—to justify aggression against former Soviet states in the past. The Kremlin has also promoted its concept of “Russkiy Mir” (“Russian World”) — an amorphous ideological and geographic conception that includes all of the former territories of Kyivan Rus, the Kingdom of Muscovy, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the contemporary Russian Federation and which Putin uses to frame any territories a Russian regime ruled or claimed to have ruled as Russia’s “historical territories.”
The Kremlin has been setting informational conditions to justify potential aggression against Moldova and the Baltic states using the alleged need to protect its “compatriots abroad” and the claim that these countries are part of the “Russkiy Mir” — the same narratives that the Kremlin used to justify the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Trump’s statements therefore, cohere with ISW’s fundamental assessment that Russia maintains territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine and will continue pursuing these ambitions unless Putin is forced to reconsider his theory of victory.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio correctly stated that Russia has not shown a willingness to move forward in peace negotiations.
Rubio’s statements are consistent with ISW’s assessments that Russia has been attempting to delay the negotiation process and protract the war in order to secure additional territorial gains. Russia’s maximalist negotiating demands for Ukrainian territory, including significant amounts of territory that Russia does not currently occupy, represent an informational tactic intended to force territorial concessions to compensate for gains that Russia cannot achieve on the battlefield.
Ukraine stops Russian advances in Sumy region, Ukraine’s army chief says
Ukrainian troops have halted the advances of Russian forces in border areas of Sumy region, and the contact line was stabilized, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a post to Telegram on Thursday.
Ukrainian troops were successfully employing the tactics of active defense and were recapturing land in border areas of Sumy region, he continued.
In the Pivnichnoslobozhanskyi and Kursk directions, Ukrainian forces have once again pinned around 50,000 Russian troops, including elite airborne (VDV) and naval infantry brigades, Syrskyi said.
“Our troops’ offensive actions in the Glushkovo district of the Kursk region made the enemy redeploy part of the troops [to the area] to protect their territory. This has significantly reduced offensive capabilities of the enemy’s main grouping in the Sumy direction,” he said. He added that in the Pivnichnoslobozhanskyi direction, the Ukrainian command established a special group responsible for the defense of the cities and communities of Sumy region.
“[The group’s] priority is to strengthen fortifications and widen the system of engineering barriers. [The command] has also appointed an official responsible for preparing the cities and communities of Sumy region to defend themselves and establishing an efficient system of engineering fortifications in the possible directions of the enemy’s advance,” Syrskyi said.
Spokesperson for the State Border Guard Service, Andriy Demchenko, said on Tuesday that Russian forces had decreased the tempo of their advance in Sumy region, but in the sections within the Yunakivka and Khotin communities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Saturday, June 14, that Ukrainian troops had recaptured the village of Andriyivka in Sumy region.