On Wednesday 25 June, the leaders of the NATO countries promised their unwavering support for Ukraine.
“Allies reaffirm their enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine, whose security contributes to ours”, underlines the declaration they adopted at their summit in The Hague.
“We stand by Ukraine in its pursuit of peace and will continue to support Ukraine on its irreversible path to NATO membership”, stressed NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the end of the summit, although the declaration did not mention this. On his arrival in The Hague, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had warned that NATO had no business in Ukraine, that Ukraine, like Russia, was not a member of NATO and that “my job is to keep it as it is”.
The Secretary General specified that the Allies had to ensure that Ukraine could continue to fight and had the necessary resources to be as strong as possible, but also “to prevent Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin from ever, ever trying this again in the future”. According to Mr Rutte, this involves training and the supply of military equipment, as well as support for the development of the Ukrainian defence industry.
“Our strong message (...) is that Ukraine has our continued support, including with over €35 billion pledged so far this year, with more to follow”, explained Mark Rutte. The Allies have decided that aid directly contributing to the defence of Ukraine and the development of its defence industry will be included in the calculation of Allied defence spending and therefore in the 5% target they have set themselves for 2035 (see other news).
Asked about the Ukrainian requests for Patriots, US President Donald Trump said that his country would see if this was possible. “We’ll see if we can make some available. They’re very hard to get. We need them too. We were supplying them to Israel, and they’re very effective, 100% effective”, he explained. “Ukraine is ready to buy this equipment and support American weapons manufacturers. Europe can help”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X, adding that he had discussed the potential for drone co-production with Mr Trump.
Working for peace. NATO’s Secretary General also stressed the need to work towards “getting a peace deal done, or a long-term ceasefire done”.
“We hope that we will succeed” in ending the war, stressed Donald Trump, explaining that it was “the ideal moment”. Mr Trump spoke with Mr Zelensky, not to negotiate, but to find out how the Ukrainian president was feeling, according to the US President. The meeting, which Trump described as “very pleasant”, was also a way of easing tensions following a difficult meeting at the White House at the end of February. He said he would be contacting Russian President Vladimir Putin, who, according to Trump, would like to “get out” of this war. “Vladimir Putin really has to end this war”, added Mr Trump.
While the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, explained that the United States would get involved if it had “the opportunity to make a difference and bring (the Russians) to the negotiating table”, the French President, Emmanuel Macron, explained that the Europeans “needed the United States to obtain a ceasefire, through a deterrent capacity and also by using the credibility linked to the Iranian situation”.
And while the Europeans are preparing an 18th package of sanctions (see EUROPE 13667/3) and US Senator Lindsey Graham is pushing for measures in Congress, Mr Rubio said that if the United States imposed new measures on Russia, “we would probably lose our ability to talk to them about the ceasefire”. “And then who’s talking to them? Because they don’t talk to anyone else in Europe. They are not talking to anyone else in the world who is on our side and who sees things the way we do”, he warned, adding that if the US President were to impose sanctions, this “would almost be tantamount to admitting that negotiations will not be imminent”.
To see the summit declaration: https://aeur.eu/f/hkq (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)