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Bloc of convenience: the issue of support for Ukraine is being resolved at the NATO summit
The new package of military assistance that NATO is coordinating for Ukraine at the Ankara summit will not change the course of the conflict in Kiev's favor, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-large Rodion Miroshnik told Izvestia. According to him, the €70 billion allocated to Ukraine is unprecedented in volume, but it will only be enough to prolong the fighting, not reverse it. European countries and Canada will finance the package — the United States has refused direct participation, while the resources of the Europeans themselves are running out: some of them have already admitted that they have almost nothing to help Kiev with. At the same time, the allies are concluding multibillion-dollar defense deals at the summit, which Washington has long sought from them.
The NATO Summit started in Ankara
The Alliance is trying to show unity, but it is becoming more difficult. On July 7, Turkey hosted the leaders of the bloc for the first time since 2004. The Beshtepe complex brought together the leaders of all 32 NATO countries, as well as guests from outside the alliance, including the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and President of the Republic of Korea Lee Jae-myung.
The main participant was US President Donald Trump, who was met at the ramp by his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. For the American president, this is the first visit to Turkey in its current status, and he did not arrive in the best of spirits.: Shortly before departure, Trump called the alliance unilateral and said he had agreed to participate only "out of respect" for the Turkish leader. "If the summit had not been held in Turkey, I probably would not have gone," he admitted.
The summit opened with the Defense Industry Forum, where NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced contracts "worth tens of billions of dollars." Among the deals are purchases of new tanker aircraft, Airbus military transporters and Triton reconnaissance drones. Rutte called all the projects made in NATO with the participation of European, American and Canadian companies.
The Secretary General also announced a new initiative, the NATO Front Door. It should simplify the interaction of the military industry with the alliance: now all issues related to military procurement can be solved through a single service. Rutte also said that the bloc would produce American weapons in Europe, including Abrams tanks and ATACMS and Stinger missiles.
According to Rutte, since Trump's first presidential term, European countries and Canada have additionally invested about $1 trillion in defense, and the average level of military spending has approached 4% of GDP, with a target of 5% by 2035. The American president has been demanding increased spending from the allies for several years.
The deep-seated differences between the United States and Europe have not gone away. Trump accuses the allies of "not being there" during the US operation against Iran, Washington announced a review of the deployment of American troops in Europe, and Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth called the alliance a one-way street. According to Natalia Eremina, a professor at St. Petersburg State University, the NATO allies do not have a unified position, and Washington is building its line on the principle of minimal involvement in the conflict with maximum financial return: the United States is ready to support purchases made in the States themselves, but it does not intend to make direct commitments.
New aid package for Ukraine
The main work of the allies will begin on July 8: 32 heads of state and government will gather at a meeting of the North Atlantic Council and must adopt a final declaration. Its key section is the parameters of the new aid package for Ukraine, which was the subject of the most difficult negotiations.
The draft final document, according to Western media reports, enshrines the commitment of European allies and Canada to allocate €70 billion to Ukraine in 2026, and also confirms the intention to maintain a comparable level of assistance in 2027.
However, this money will not change the course of the conflict, said Rodion Miroshnik, the Russian Foreign Ministry's ambassador-at-large for crimes of the Kiev regime. He noted that the amount is unprecedented: from 1991 to 2014, Ukraine received only about half of the current €70 billion in external payments.
— These funds are clearly not enough to win, which someone is counting on. But to prolong the war and the continuation of bloodshed, this colossal amount of money will be quite enough," he told Izvestia.
The Czech Republic has already stated that it will not participate in the NATO initiative to allocate €70 billion to Ukraine. The United States is also not planning to participate. In the 2026 National Defense Strategy, the Trump administration designated assistance to Ukraine as "primarily Europe's responsibility." NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte describes the changes as a transition to "NATO 3.0" — a situation in which the United States will transfer more responsibility to EU countries in the European direction and in Ukraine. According to him, last year the European allies and Canada increased defense spending by almost 20% to $ 139 billion, and in total for 2025 and 2026 additional investments amounted to $258 billion.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte
At the same time, the Europeans themselves have fewer and fewer real opportunities to help. For example, Dutch Defense Minister Dylan Jeschilgez-Zegerius said that the country had exhausted its reserves of support for Kiev. "We, the Netherlands, have no more opportunities because we have done so much. We are at the limit," the minister said.
Kiev needs not only money, but also weapons, in particular air defense systems, which the allies physically lack. The Ukrainian military is increasingly stating that the shortage of missiles for Patriot systems is hurting Kiev's defenses.
Speaking at the Defense Industry Forum, Vladimir Zelensky urged Western countries not to postpone the resolution of the issue of air defense: according to him, Europe needs its own affordable anti-missile systems, and "not by 2030, but today." According to Bloomberg, Germany can transfer part of its Patriot stocks to Ukraine, but even here the possibilities are limited: the US military operation against Iran has depleted American warehouses, from where European arsenals are replenished.
"Germany is closely coordinating its actions with its NATO partners so that the Ankara summit becomes another powerful signal of support for Ukraine," the German Embassy in Moscow told Izvestia.
Most likely, it will be possible to coordinate assistance to Ukraine's allies, but it is unlikely to provide it in the required volume, Natalia Yeremina believes. According to the expert, the real agreements on large-scale supplies will shift to the next budget cycle — 2028 and later.
According to The Telegraph, Zelensky will not be allowed to speak during the main plenary session of the alliance. Instead, on July 8, he will hold a bilateral meeting with Trump, after which, as expected, the American leader will call Vladimir Putin. By the way, earlier the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation offered Ukraine to transfer the bodies of the soldiers who died in Konstantinovka. However, the Ukrainian side refused. Commenting on this, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted: Kiev has confirmed that it does not need either living or dead Ukrainians. The minister added that Russia would wait for the outcome of the talks between Zelensky and Trump.
In Moscow, the summit is kept in sight. On July 7, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: The Russian side will monitor all statements and documents from Ankara, and drew attention to the fact that the statements made by NATO representatives about Russia prior to the summit were "not constructive, but rather confrontational."
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