NATO powers renewed their “enduring commitment” to support Ukraine in the war with Russia and its prospective entry into the trans-Atlantic alliance.
“Some are questioning whether the United States and other NATO Allies should continue to stand with Ukraine as we enter the second winter of Putin’s brutality,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Brussels on Wednesday. “But the answer here today at NATO is clear and it’s unwavering: We must and we will continue to support Ukraine.”
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That endorsement coincided with a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, which met to discuss how "to further deepen the NATO-Ukraine relationship” for the first time since the Vilnius Summit in July. The intervening months exposed Ukraine to military and geopolitical headwinds, as the long-awaited counteroffensive achieved limited territorial gains in eastern Ukraine, in combination with the chaotic and unresolved dispute in Congress over new funding for American aid to Ukraine.
“If I am to sum up this meeting that we had today, there was a clear ‘no’ to fatigue and a clear yes to continued and increased support to Ukraine,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said during an appearance alongside Blinken. “So anyone who is waiting in the world and who is heading up these narratives about fatigue and decreasing support — and we know who does — anyone who is counting that this narrative will prevail and will become the mainstream narrative, that person is failing.”
The week began with Blinken’s team facing questions about a German media report that U.S. officials and their counterparts in Germany want Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to sue for peace with Russia and to make the case for such a deal “without any external request” from the West. Yet Western officials used the diplomatic forum as an opportunity to argue that Ukraine’s military position is better than casual observers realize, particularly in light of recent strikes against Russia’s Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, the historic port city in Crimea, which Putin annexed in 2014 at the beginning of the war.
“And they have put a foot on the other side of the Dnipro River,” European Union High Representative Josep Borrell told reporters Tuesday, referring to the beachhead that Ukrainian forces have established in the Kherson region, near Crimea. “So, everybody is looking at another war and maybe not perceiving exactly [what] is the situation of the Ukrainian capacity to resist.”
That landfall offers the hope, however contested, that Ukrainian forces might be able to isolate Crimea from the rest of the Russian forces while circumventing the heart of the Russian fortifications that have stymied their efforts to achieve that goal with a breakthrough further north.
Ukraine’s top general, Valerii Zaluzhny, acknowledged last month that the war has settled into a “stalemate,” an impasse that he attributed to the balance of military technology and also the delays that have beset President Joe Biden’s provision of advanced heavy weaponry to Ukraine.
“They are not obliged to give us anything, and we are grateful for what we have got, but I am simply stating the facts,” Zaluzhny told the Economist.
Biden, after more than a year of requests, agreed in September to transfer a limited number of long-range missiles to Ukraine, which reportedly have been used in some of the most effective strikes on the Russian Black Sea fleet in Crimea. He also granted permission for other NATO countries that own U.S.-made F-16s to provide those fighter jets to the Ukrainians, who have begun the training needed to accept delivery of the warplanes.
“I think it is important that of course F-16’s will make a difference,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday. “At the same time, I think we need to now realize that there is not a silver bullet, not a single system that by itself will change fundamentally the situation on the battlefield. This is a question of many different capabilities are working together at the same time that will push the Russians back. We have to be prepared for a long and hard fight.”
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Those more advanced military platforms portend long-term military cooperation between Ukraine and NATO given the training and supply chain integration required to make continued use of such Western weapons.
“So it’s important to have the big picture in mind even as we’re acutely aware of the challenges that Ukraine faces day in, day out,” Blinken said. “But our awareness is matched by a determination to stand with Ukraine, to support Ukraine, to work with Ukraine, and that was reaffirmed here today at NATO.”