WASHINGTON, DC – NATO leaders on Thursday (Friday Manila time) will hold talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and turn their attention to the challenge from China at a meeting with Asian partners, as they wrap up a three-day summit in Washington.
The 32-nation alliance has used the pomp-filled set piece in the US capital to showcase its resolve against Russia and backing for Kyiv.
Their gathering has been overshadowed by political uncertainty in the United States as President Joe Biden — who will give a press conference Thursday (Friday in Manila) — fights for his own political survival.
Zelenskyy will join his NATO counterparts at a giant convention center in the heart of the US capital after getting promises of new weaponry to bolster the defense of the skies over Ukraine.
But he has called on Kyiv’s backers, especially the United States, to go further — including by giving his outgunned forces greater scope to strike inside Russia.
“Imagine how much we can achieve when all limitations are lifted,” Zelenskyy said on the sidelines of the summit.
NATO’s leaders on Wednesday once again demurred from issuing his war-torn country a clear invitation to join their alliance.
Zelenskyy unleashed a diplomatic firestorm at a summit in Lithuania last year by lambasting NATO’s reluctance on membership.
In a bid to soften any disappointment this time around, NATO leaders called Ukraine’s path to membership “irreversible.”
They also pledged to provide Kyiv a minimum of 40 billion euros ($43 billion) in military support “within the next year.”
Meanwhile, NATO allies announced yesterday they had started transferring F-16 jets to Ukraine while stepping up promises to Kyiv on eventual membership in the alliance.
Biden invited Zelenskyy to the summit, who voiced gratitude for the F-16s.
The new aircraft will “bring just and lasting peace closer, demonstrating that terror must fail,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
With the pomp of the three-day gathering in the US capital, President Biden is aiming to rally the West and also reassure voters amid pre-election scrutiny of whether at 81 — six years older than NATO itself — he remains fit for the job.
Biden individually welcomed the other 31 leaders of the alliance before urging them to keep pace with Russia’s military production, which has stepped up sharply in the two years since President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
“We can — and will — defend every inch of NATO territory and we’ll do it together,” Biden told the North Atlantic Council, the formal decision-making body of the alliance, at Washington’s convention center as the city sweltered under a heat wave.
Biden announced that Denmark and the Netherlands had begun sending US-made F-16 jets to Ukraine — making good on a key promise last year to Kyiv, which has struggled to gain parity in the air with Russia.
He earlier announced new air defense systems for Ukraine and said the United States had agreed to place long-range missiles periodically in Germany.
In the evening Biden hosted the NATO leaders for a gala dinner, marked by storm clouds that forced the cancellation of a planned flypast.
Biden compared the alliance to his childhood neighborhood, saying: “When a neighbor needed help, you pitched in. When the bullies threatened the block, you stepped up.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the F-16 transfer “concentrates Vladimir Putin’s mind on the fact that he will not outlast Ukraine, he will not outlast us.”
But White House challenger Donald Trump, who is edging out Biden in polls leading up to November’s presidential election, has mused about bringing a quick peace settlement by pushing Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia.
The Republican mogul has repeatedly questioned the utility of NATO — formed in 1949 as collective defense against Moscow — which he sees as an unfair burden on the United States.
On the eve of the summit, Russia fired a barrage of missiles on Ukraine, killing dozens, including in Kyiv where a children’s hospital was reduced to debris.
The summit aimed in part to “Trump-proof” the alliance including by giving NATO a greater role, rather than the United States, in coordinating arms delivery into Ukraine.
In a joint declaration, NATO leaders promised to give Ukraine 40 billion euros ($43 billion) in military aid “within the next year” — part of efforts to increase stability after Trump’s allies in Congress held up US assistance for months.
Trump’s aides have also discussed conditioning aid to Ukraine on forcing Kyiv to the negotiating table and said that China, not Russia, is a larger concern to US interests.
The NATO leaders’ statement took aim at China as well, voicing “profound concern” over its industrial support to Russia.
China’s reaction was swift.
“NATO should stop hyping up the so-called China threat and provoking confrontation and rivalry, and do more to contribute to world peace and stability,” a spokesman for Beijing’s mission to the EU said, adding that “China’s position on Ukraine is open and aboveboard.”
Biden invited four key Pacific partners to the summit — Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand — as he seeks to increase NATO’s role in Asia.
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