NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg shares a joke with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken after Stoltenberg threw out the opening pitch ahead of Monday night’s Washington Nationals-Saint Louis Cardinals game at Nationals Park in Washington. Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE
July 9 (UPI) — Leaders from 38 countries will meet in Washington beginning Tuesday for a three-day NATO summit marking the military alliance’s 75th anniversary with support for Ukraine set to be at the forefront of discussion.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg arrived in Washington on Monday where he met with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and said that U.S. commitment and leadership on Ukraine has “really made a difference and enabled us all to provide unprecedented support to Ukraine.”
“Allies continue to carry their fair share of the burden,” Stoltenberg said.
Stoltenberg added the summit would broadly address the deterrence and defense capabilities of NATO to show that the 32-member alliance has “the forces, the readiness and the capabilities we need to continue to deter any aggressor.”
White House national security adviser John Kirby said the NATO Ukraine Council will meet on the final day of the summit Thursday after which President Joe Biden will host an event alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other allies and partners that have reached security agreements with Ukraine.
Kirby said that the people of Ukraine have demonstrated that “when supplied and when supported by the international community and the United States” they can hold off Russia’s advances.
“Throughout these last three months, the Russians have attacked relentlessly across all … fronts, and the price that they have paid for the few meters that they have gained here and there has been extensive: heavy casualties, destroyed equipment, disrupted supply lines, degraded morale,” Kirby said.
Thursday is also expected to see the release of a joint communique that will say that Ukraine’s path to membership of the security alliance is “irreversible,” according to a draft of the document, three sources told CNN.
Differences within the 32 member-country organization over Ukraine’s future membership and how fast to proceed mean the communique could change but the wording is expected to make it into the final document issued at the close of the summit Thursday, the sources told CNN.
A joint declaration that Ukraine’s accession to NATO is not a matter of if but when would send a strong message to both Kyiv and Moscow that the West’s commitment to defending Ukraine is for the long haul.
The White House backs the language of the proposed communique on condition it also stated that Ukraine must carry on with its work on democratic reforms, a U.S. official, who stressed that the stipulation was expected to be in the final text, told CNN.
Some European capitals have been pushing for an unequivocal stance on the issue but Washington and Berlin back the narrative of a “bridge” to Ukraine’s membership in NATO while Hungary is at the other end of the spectrum, only reversing a threat to veto plans for NATO to provide security assistance and training on condition of an opt-out.
Amid calls Monday by Ukraine Parliament chair Ruslan Stefanchuk for “decisions that will bring Ukraine closer to the Alliance,” membership of which he said was “Kyiv’s only goal,” there is growing convergence on the need for more concrete steps backing Ukraine’s struggle against Russia.
These include “significant new announcements about how we’re increasing NATO’s military, political and financial support for Ukraine” as part of Kyiv’s “bridge to NATO,” a senior U.S. administration official said Friday.
NATO sources told euronews the bridge would be would be backed by a pledge of a $43 billion contribution for next year and a joint mission to cluster training and weapons and equipment deliveries under a centralized operation in order to ready Ukraine for NATO membership when the time comes.
The U.S. administration official said the package NATO would be launching at the summit was a “quite subtantial” one that went far beyond a general roadmap, confirming that a dedicated command would be set up at the U.S. Army Garrison at Wiesbaden in southern Germany to deliver training, coordination, equipping, logistics and force development.
The so-called NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine mission will have a staff of more than 700 and be led by three-star general.
“This is a very serious effort to get Ukraine in a position where it will be ready to assume its roles and responsibilities within the alliance on day one,” said the U.S. official.
