NATO allies are gathering in Washington to celebrate the alliance’s 75th anniversary. New announcements of continued support for Ukraine are aimed at showing Moscow that no one is abandoning Kyiv.
NATO allies have a clear message to Russia: support for Ukraine is permanent and Russian President Vladimir Putin is “all wrong” if he thinks he will win the war of patience and that support will run out of steam.
Leaders of the 32 NATO countries are meeting in Washington on Tuesday to celebrate the alliance’s 75th anniversary, and new announcements on Ukraine’s air defenses, including Patriot missiles, are expected from the U.S. capital.
However, the summit is by no means a turning point for Ukraine in its membership in the alliance – and an invitation to Kyiv is not planned.
A promise of 40 billion euros in military contributions for next year and the establishment of a training and security assistance mission for Ukrainian forces will also be made.
All this is aimed at “institutionalizing” or building a bridge for Ukraine to eventually join when the “time is right,” NATO sources said.
The new initiative, provisionally called NSATU (NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine), will become the alliance’s main forum for training and coordinating arms deliveries.
It will be based in Germany and led by a three-star general and more than 700 people.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be in Washington, where he will hold several bilateral meetings and host a special event with US President Joe Biden for non-NATO allies and partners that have signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine.
Michael Carpenter, senior director for Europe at the US National Security Council, told reporters that alongside planned announcements of new military contributions for Ukraine, the alliance would consolidate its long-term support.
“We will send a strong signal to Putin that if he thinks he can survive the coalition of countries supporting Ukraine, he is very wrong,” Carpenter said.
“Allies will establish a new NATO military command in Germany, which will draw on NATO institutional forces to coordinate training and equipping, and help Ukraine develop a future force,” he added.
The Russian strikes are “horrible, tragic and senseless.”
The need to institutionalize support for Ukraine is aimed at providing predictable and stable military equipment and avoiding future deficits, which have proven disastrous on the battlefield in recent months.
It is also a plan devised by outgoing Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to try to ensure that support for Ukraine remains an inextricable part of NATO’s priorities and functionsespecially in the event that Donald Trump or other governments hostile to Ukraine efforts come to power.
While there is no consensus on when or how Ukraine might ultimately join, several countries, including the United States, are eager to ensure that the alliance conveys the intention that Ukraine is on an “irreversible” path to membership.
Indeed, there will be “no invitation to join per se; rather, we are putting in place the deliverables for a bridge to membership,” a NATO source told Euronews.
“We need to say something new; we need to try to find the right words to give something more than last year, so that it does not change the fact that we are committed and that we will invite, when time permits, Ukraine to join us,” said another source from a NATO member state.
Mr. Carpenter said the language used at the end of the summit will recognize Ukraine’s ongoing reform efforts and demonstrate Allied support for Ukraine on its path to NATO membership.
The summit takes place following a Russian missile strike on children’s hospital in Kyiv on Monday.
ADVERTISEMENTThe United States, which is chairing the summit, has called for an investigation into war crimes committed during the attack after images emerged showing nurses, doctors and parents cradling children suffering from cancer or surgical conditions.
NATO sources believe thatThis was a deliberate message before the summit, Putin often tries to overshadow international events with provocative displays of “force.”
Scenes of utter despair emerged at Ohmatdyt hospital in the Ukrainian capital, where at least two people were killed and many others injured.
“You can use all the adjectives to describe the attack on a children’s hospital. From a human perspective, it’s horrific, it’s tragic, it’s senseless and it needs to be seriously investigated,” Carpenter said.
