NATO leaders will define the future of their relationship with Ukraine at the Vilnius summit

The allies are suspicious of the security guarantees demanded by Zelenski and will not offer a clear membership calendar

BRUSSELS, July 9. (EUROPEAN PRESS) -

NATO leaders hope to send a message of strong support for Ukraine and its ambitions to join the alliance when they meet Tuesday and Wednesday in Vilnius, Lithuania, for a summit called to define the future of the relationship with Kiev and in the that the participation of the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, is expected.

The best kept secret of the NATO heads of state and government is the signal they send to kyiv to reinforce the Bucharest declaration of 2008, in which they already recognized Ukraine as a future member of NATO. The idea is to give more power to this promise, in the middle of the war with Russia, although the allied sources rule out that the language of the declaration contains any temporary reference to Ukraine's entry into the organization.

"We did not come to Vilnius to reaffirm the message of Bucharest. We will take into account the situation in Ukraine and the Russian invasion and the declaration will reflect the long-term commitment to the stability of the country," said the US ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith. , before the summit that is held at a historic moment and in a city just over 20 kilometers from Belarus, Moscow's main ally in the attack on Ukraine.

In any case, the allies do not contemplate setting a time frame for Ukraine's entry into NATO, nor do they propose offering security guarantees collectively to kyiv. The thesis of the Allied Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, is that the NATO countries should now focus their efforts on militarily supporting the Ukrainian army to achieve victories and retake territory in its counteroffensive, which will improve its position in future peace negotiations.

"The differences are not great, but each ally has its perspective on the deadlines to promote Ukraine's entry into NATO and Ukraine has its own calendar," explained another allied source, who in any case excludes big surprises in the statement because it has to be adopted by consensus among the 31 members and will be negotiated until the last minute.

It is also ruled out that NATO agrees to formally invite Ukraine to join the organization, as requested by Zelenski, since the allies understand that "today the security conditions for membership do not exist."

Thus, the meeting in the Lithuanian capital will force the allied leaders to carry out an important political and diplomatic exercise to highlight the practical support they provide to Ukraine, in the context of Russian aggression, without disappointing Zelensky's aspirations .

The flagship measure will be the multi-year package with which NATO will help modernize Ukraine's defense and institutions for the next decade. Endowed with several billion euros, the plan aims to provide sustainable support to kyiv and facilitate its eventual entry into NATO by improving interoperability and adopting Western military standards.

As for political aspects, NATO wants to inaugurate the NATO-Ukraine Council, hand in hand with Zelenski, a consultation mechanism with which Kiev will be on an equal footing with the allies to carry out consultations and deal with security issues. Until now, this format was only maintained with Russia, although the invasion of Ukraine blew all the bridges between NATO and Moscow.

Among NATO's trump cards to stage support for Ukraine is to consider the accession advisory program to have been passed, a project with which it offers assistance and practical support to candidate countries to join the bloc. In the case of Ukraine, the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the full-scale invasion of 2022 have led to a close relationship that makes this program lose some sense.

"The reality is that with all the different programs we will bring Ukraine closer to NATO and that will help us to make progress on the issue of sending a positive message on the issue of accession as well," Stoltenberg himself acknowledged before the appointment of Lithuania.

Another of the debates that has animated the weeks leading up to the summit is to offer security guarantees to Ukraine to prevent eventual Russian military aggression, an issue that generates "divergences" between allies due to the security consequences that it would entail.

At this moment, some NATO members of the bloc are negotiating bilaterally to give long-term military support to Kiev, although there will be no announcements in Lithuania, allied sources explain, stressing that it is not up to the military organization to provide this type of commitment. which in NATO vocabulary correspond to the mutual defense clause of Article 5 of the Washington treaty.

"The term security guarantees is off the table. Because obviously NATO is not willing to give other countries security guarantees of the Article 5 type," allied sources have assured. Until now, Stoltenberg has defended that NATO offer a security framework to break Moscow's aggressive pattern towards its neighbor, but he has been ambiguous when it comes to explaining what this commitment will consist of.

The meeting in Lithuania will also be marked by the meeting the day before between Turkey and Sweden to unblock the entry of the Nordic country into the Atlantic alliance, a membership that NATO hopes to definitively resolve with the meeting between the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

Stoltenberg believes that Sweden's entry is "close at hand" and hopes to "close the gap" between Stockholm and Ankara on account of cooperation against Kurdish terrorism. Sweden defends that it has complied with the commitments made in terms of security in the Madrid trilateral agreement, when a year ago it unblocked the start of the accession process, but Turkey continues to wait for more steps in cooperation against terrorism and demands the extradition of alleged members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

In any case, the sources consulted see "real possibilities" of clearing the Turkish blockade and point out that the process is "well oriented" to complete the ratification of Sweden's entry into NATO, pending only Turkey and Hungary, once the Stoltenberg's mediations have had their effect and made significant progress.

Likewise, during the summit, the political chief of NATO hopes to close the commitment of the allies with a new horizon of military spending that places 2 percent as the minimum spending on Defense.

The pact is "on track" since within NATO there is a shared conviction that the conflict in Ukraine requires an increase in spending, which has already registered growth of 8.3 percent, the highest figure in its history.

Spending is inevitable to meet security expectations stemming from the Ukraine crisis and this year eleven allies will meet the 2 percent spending line agreed at the 2014 Welsh summit, when only three countries met this bar.

Allied leaders will also ratify the Defense Production Action plan to bolster the Euro-Atlantic industrial base, aggregate demand, boost military production capacity and increase allied interoperability. Spain has criticized these plans for not taking into account Spanish arms companies, threatening to veto the program, although it has achieved in previous negotiations that the plan be open and "transparent and inclusive".