ISLAMABAD: Nato leaders grapple with Ukraine’s membership ambitions at their summit on Tuesday, their determination to face down Russia boosted by a breakthrough in Sweden’s bid to join the alliance.
German Patriot missile systems and French fighter jets were guarding the skies as Nato leaders gathered in Lithuania, on land once occupied by Moscow on the alliance’s eastern flank.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will head to Vilnius for the two-day summit to make the case that Kyiv has earned the right to join when the Kremlin’s invasion ends.
“Ukraine deserves to be in the alliance. Not now, because now there’s war, but we need a clear signal,” Zelensky said in Kyiv.
The Western military alliance is set to offer its full-throated backing for Kyiv’s quest for victory, but its 31 nations are divided over how far to go on letting Ukraine join their ranks.
While Ukraine’s neighbours have pushed for an explicit timetable, heavyweights the United States and Germany are reluctant to go beyond an earlier vow that it will become a member one day.
US President Joe Biden, who will meet with Zelensky on Wednesday, has said there is no agreement to offer Kyiv membership while its war with Russia rages, as this would drag Nato directly into the conflict.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Nato will draw up a path of reforms that Ukraine will need to undertake in order to eventually join, but without giving a “timetable”. The alliance is offering Kyiv a branch by simplifying its eventual accession bid and dropping a requirement that it completes a formal road map of reforms. As Ukraine wages a punishing counter-offensive, dominant powers the United States, Britain, France and Germany have been negotiating long-term commitments on weapons supplies with Kyiv.
These fall far short of Zelensky’s desire to be under Nato’s collective defence umbrella but could reassure him that his nation can keep on fighting.
Drawing up something similar to the US arrangement with Israel — which sees Washington sending $3.8 billion (3.5 billion euros) of weapons each year for a decade — is one possibility.
Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda insisted only Nato’s article five mutual defence clause “can provide real security guarantees which would deter Russia from any future aggression.” In a reminder of the daily threat facing Ukrainians, Russia targeted Kyiv and the port city of Odesa in yet another overnight drone attack. There was no immediate information on casualties. –Agencies
