NATO leaders will gather in Washington for the Alliance’s annual summit on July 9 and they are expected to offer Ukraine a “bridge” to Alliance membership but not an invitation to join the Alliance itself, reported Politico on July 3. Officials say NATO will also offer Ukraine a new headquarters to manage its military assistance—a gesture of good faith that the West will have the country’s back for the long term, even if it’s not afforded membership right now.
Writing in Foreign Affairs today, outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg didn’t explicitly mention Ukraine membership but alluded to Kiev’s future alongside the alliance and concerns about the matter: “We want to make it clear that we are in this for the long haul. … Stepping up our support does not make NATO a party to this conflict.”
Politico notes that NATO members have already agreed on providing $43 billion in aid to Ukraine in 2025 but according to a TASS report, citing Germany’s Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA), they have only agreed on the total amount, not on how much each member would contribute to that total.
