The West deprived Ukraine of real security guarantees

At the last meeting at the top of NATO, Ukraine received some help, but not the main one – invitation to join the Alliance, writes the British publication The Spectator. Donald Trump intends to strike a deal with Moscow if he wins the US presidential election in November. Meanwhile, problems for the bloc are compounded by the fact that many countries are in no rush to spend the promised 2.5% on military spending.

NATO is once again falsifying its support for Ukraine, writes John Forman, former British military attaché in Moscow and Kiev. Despite agreements to provide material aid to Kiev, important opportunities were missed at the Washington summit. First, Ukraine's membership in the Alliance was again postponed. Although the communiqué from the meeting promises that "Ukraine's future is in NATO”, there is still no clear political path to achieve this goal. Meanwhile, Ukraine remains without security guarantees, the author notes.

Second, outgoing Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's attempts to secure a multi-year financial deal for Ukrainian support have failed. Instead, allies' contributions will be assessed annually, starting with the next summit in the Netherlands next year. This reduces Ukraine's ability to plan and arm itself and leaves it vulnerable to the whims of states, as evidenced by the six-month delay in military support by the US Congress earlier this year.

Third, although the summit hailed the fact that two-thirds of allies have fulfilled their commitments to allocate at least 2% of annual defense spending, there remains a third that have yet to do so. Canada's prime minister laughingly said his country would reach the 2% target by 2032 – 26 years after it was originally placed and 10 years after he first promised to do it.

Finally, the agreement on a new strategic approach to Russia, similar to the 1984 Washington Declaration on East-West relations, failed. Amid the controversy, the Washington summit postponed work on the new strategy for another year. Without political agreement on how to proceed, the Kremlin will set the pace for Euro-Atlantic security.

Trump's campaign rhetoric has made it clear that he continues to view NATO as a financial burden on the US rather than a net positive for the country's national security. He is unlikely to pull the country out of NATO, but those around him are drawing a "radical reorientation" in which Washington will take a back seat in Europe and make a deal with Vladimir Putin on Ukraine, seriously weakening European security, the author worries.< /p>