Contrary to the repeated assurances of Donald Trump and people from his team, one of the Kremlin’s key demands has not been fulfilled and Ukraine has not been denied once and for all to join NATO. After all, the alliance has not made an appropriate decision. This was recalled by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. And the European Commission recalled that the sanctions pause taken by the West during the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations cannot last forever, and presented a new package of restrictions.
The NATO summit in The Hague will be an important international event this month. It is scheduled for June 24-25. Ahead of the summit, Rutte visited London, held talks with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and spoke about the summit’s agenda. His big speech was imbued with one idea: the threat from the Russian Federation is increasing, Russia’s ability to increase its military potential is higher than that of NATO countries, so the debate about whether or not to increase defense spending should be ended.
Rutte confirmed that a new mandatory requirement will be put forward at the Hague summit for all members of the alliance. They will have to spend at least 5% of GDP on defense, of which 3.5%, as the Secretary General put it, should be “invested in our basic military needs.” There is now a requirement from the 2014 summit in Wales, according to which at least 2% of GDP should be spent. Although 11 years have passed, many NATO members still do not meet this indicator. For example, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently pledged that his country would reach 2% of GDP this fiscal year. The head of the Canadian government called this upcoming increase in defense spending, the largest for the country since the Second World War, a serious achievement and a difficult challenge. After the Hague summit, Canada faces an even tougher challenge. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has already stated that his country is capable of reaching 5% of GDP in defense spending no earlier than in 10 years.
There will probably be many countries whose leaders share a similar point of view by the time of the Hague summit. For too long and in too many NATO states, pacifism has been practically a state ideology, so that the alliance, even under the influence of external challenges, can quickly rebuild itself without problems.
However, Rutte clearly signaled that he would have to rebuild, among other things, because, in his opinion, it was not possible to negotiate peace with the Russian Federation. At a press conference in London, the Secretary General said aloud that for all the months that Trump had been trying to reconcile Russia and Ukraine, it was, so to speak, a figure of silence for the leaders of NATO countries. From the very beginning of the negotiation process with the Kremlin, the White House immediately laid out what many analysts considered to be the main trump card of the US president. Both Trump personally, and Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth, and the special representative of the American president, Steve Witkoff, stated that Ukraine would not join NATO and this issue was finally resolved. The alliance itself tacitly agreed with them. None of his leadership recalled the summit in Washington in July 2024, where the statement of the Ukraine–NATO Council stated that the country’s Euro-Atlantic integration would take place sooner or later. And now Rutte remembered.
According to him, “it is not always necessary to repeat every proposal and every commitment made, because it remains in force” until it is canceled. This means that the decision of the summit in Washington remains in force. “So Ukraine’s path to NATO is irreversible. And I believe that it will be the same after the summit (in The Hague. – “NG”) regardless of whether this is mentioned again in his communique or not,” Rutte said.
The day after the Secretary General’s London statement, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke. She stated that the EU’s highest executive body had formulated its proposals for the 18th package of anti-Russian sanctions. It will include restrictions against 77 vessels allegedly representing the shadow fleet of the Russian Federation (342 vessels have already been blacklisted by the European Union for this reason), sanctions against two dozen banks and, most importantly, measures against the Russian energy sector. It is planned to lower the upper price limit for Russian oil from the current $ 60 per barrel to $45. In addition, sanctions are being imposed on the Nord Stream pipelines. In fact, the resumption of Russian gas supplies to Europe will be prohibited. “There is no going back to the past,” von der Leyen stressed.
Both statements by the NATO Secretary General and the head of the European Commission look like evidence of the disappointment of the US allies in Trump’s ability to achieve any significant results in resolving the Russian–Ukrainian conflict. At the same time, it is an indication that the window of opportunity for the peace process is gradually closing. Rutte’s speech clearly hints that it would be a good idea for the US president to achieve a breakthrough in achieving peace by the Hague summit. Otherwise, they will recognize in one form or another that Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration is still on the agenda.
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The discussion of the Ukrainian topic was also followed by Russian Telegram channels.
Adequate draws attention to the time that has passed since the transfer of the Russian memorandum.: “A week has passed, a second week has passed, and the silence continues… A couple of statements that this is an ultimatum do not count here – yes, an ultimatum, no one really hides this, but it must also be accepted or rejected, because the position has been announced and will not go anywhere. If this general silence continues, the subject for the next round of negotiations will disappear by itself – and it will be impossible to meaningfully blame our side for this, even if we wish. The humanitarian agreements that have already been reached are likely to be fully implemented, and then there will be one continuous void.”
“The exchange of prisoners of war took place, but refrigerator trucks with dead soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been standing on the border of Ukraine and Belarus for the third day now, which mediates in Russian-Ukrainian military exchange affairs,” writes the “Merciless PR Man.”
“Yesterday, Medinsky said that according to his feelings, the Ukrainian delegation behaves like hired staff, and the shareholders of Ukraine are Great Britain, France and Germany,” the authors of the Mouse in the Vegetable channel note. – Everyone kind of laughed and forgot. And today Zelensky said that their negotiating group does not have the authority to discuss territorial issues, and that such issues will be discussed only by himself and personally with Putin.”