The Times compared the NATO summit to the "Potemkin villages"

The NATO summit in The Hague was like the "Potemkin villages", as the alliance members were afraid of disappointing US President Donald Trump. This assessment of the foreign policy event was given by the columnist of the British newspaper The Times, Edward Lucas, on June 25.

"The leaders of the alliance gathered in the Dutch city showed that they are more afraid of Donald Trump than [Russian President] Vladimir Putin. <...> Prince Grigory Potemkin would approve. To impress Catherine the Great, <...> a Russian courtier built (according to legend) portable fake villages," Lucas noted.

According to the journalist, the event was organized in such a way as to exalt Trump in every possible way and not provoke anger with his arguments and positions.

"To appease the US president, they have curtailed the agenda, pushed Ukraine to the background, <...>.. They made empty promises and avoided making urgent decisions," the columnist noted.

He stressed that the decisions taken at the summit on military spending in world politics actually turn out to be unpopular from the point of view of politics and economics.

Lucas also noted that NATO's previous promises to Ukraine have not been repeated, but they have not been canceled either.

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Earlier in the day, Trump pointed to the out-of-control situation in Ukraine at the NATO summit. The statement by the US president may indicate the readiness of the United States to actively engage in the Ukrainian issue.