NATO leaders are meeting in Vilnius on Tuesday for a two-day summit where allies will discuss the prospects of Ukraine’s NATO membership and defence funding.
Block members mull removing the membership action plan requirement for Ukraine, as well as providing further military support to Ukraine, and establishing a NATO-Ukraine council.
However, Ukraine urges the alliance to go further and agree on its invitation to join NATO after the war.
Speaking on the eve of the summit, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said Kyiv’s path towards NATO membership must be defined in time, adding that Ukraine now needs “concrete signals” that it will become a NATO member “not on paper, but in reality” if the right conditions are in place.
For his part, US President Joe Biden told the American broadcaster CNN before arriving in Vilnius that the war with Russia must end before NATO can consider Ukraine’s membership. According to him, Kyiv must also “meet other qualifications” to be invited to join.
On the eve of the summit, NATO members approved regional defence plans, including those covering the Baltic states and Poland. And national leaders are expected to give their political approval in the summit's final declaration.
According to Lithuanian officials and officers, the plans basically provide for first-day defence in the wake of a possible conflict and this reflects NATO’s changing posture. The previous concept was that if the Russians attacked, the Baltic states would be expected to withstand the attack until allies could come to the rescue. Under the new plans, the Alliance would be ready to retaliate immediately.
To ensure the members’ ability to allocate forces for the implementation of the aforementioned plans, NATO leaders should also commit to spending at least 2 percent of GDP on defence. Currently, this threshold is seen as the cap, not the floor.
One of the summit’s biggest intrigues was related to whether Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would finally agree to the ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership.
On Monday night, following several hours of talks, NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg announced a deal under which Ankara would not veto Sweden’s membership.
NATO leaders also plan to discuss events of the past several weeks in Russia after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, and its mercenaries were allowed to move to Belarus following their failed mutiny. Minsk has lately provided different version on Prigozhin’s whereabouts, but his real whereabouts is unknown.
Lithuania, Poland and other eastern NATO members claim that Wagner’s expected move to Belarus pose new threats to regional security.
The NATO summit in Vilnius should acknowledge and commend allies for their determination to strengthen their forward defence on the alliance’s eastern flank, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda says.
His statement reflects Lithuania’s diplomatic effort to have Germany’s pledge to permanently deploy a brigade in Lithuania mentioned, directly or indirectly, in the summit declaration.
The Vilnius summit will also include bilateral meetings between Nausėda and US President Biden at the Presidential Palace, and Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė and her New Zealand counterpart Chris Hipkins.
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