Ukraine Likely To Get A Much Cooler Reception At Nato Summit This Year

THE HAGUE — The outbreak of open conflict between Israel and Iran — and the U.S. decision to join the attacks — has further dampened Ukraine’s already low expectations of what it might be able to get out of this week’s NATO summit.

Leaders of the alliance, seeking to avoid a blowup with President Donald Trump, have sought for weeks to focus more on upping the alliance’s spending commitments rather than Kyiv’s plight or its future in the group. That’s a significant shift from the group’s approach for most of the time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy intends to attend the two-day summit, which starts Tuesday, and hopes to meet with Trump, but a meeting isn’t confirmed, according to a person who speaks regularly with the Ukrainian government, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic discussions. While such meetings usually come together at the last minute, the focus on Iran could make that less likely to happen.

In the days leading up to the summit, it was not clear whether Zelenskyy would participate amid fears that the visit wouldn’t be worth his time without a guarantee of significant American face time.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told reporters Monday that the alliance would “reaffirm our ongoing support for Ukraine” at the two-day summit and would be joined by Zelenskyy “for a range of different meetings.”

The Ukrainian government suggested Zelenskyy might go but did not fully confirm his attendance.

"The president has not decided yet if he will definitely attend the NATO summit, but he is planning to," said a top Ukrainian official familiar with Zelenskyy’s plans. The official was granted anonymity to discuss internal planning.

Last week, Trump left the G7 a day early, standing up Zelenskyy, who flew 5,000 miles to meet him in Canada. The U.S. president said at the time that he needed to focus on the Israel-Iran conflict. He launched an American attack on Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight Saturday.

Asked about any plans to meet Zelenskyy, a White House official granted anonymity to speak about Trump’s summit plans sidestepped the question, saying, “President Trump is focused on securing the 5 percent commitment from NATO allies that will advance the ability of member states to deter a multitude of threats.”

The summit comes as Russia has ignored entreaties by Trump to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine and enter peace talks. Instead, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stepped up his attacks on Ukraine, launching his deadliest attack on Kyiv in months last week.

The Ukrainians may not have the cards, but they could have a seat at the table at the upcoming conference. Zelenskyy will attend the Tuesday leaders' dinner, a German government official said, granted anonymity to discuss another government’s plans.

But Zelenskyy is not likely to leave the summit with fresh pledges of aid or badly needed weapons such as air defenses — even from supportive Europeans, according to three European diplomats familiar with discussions, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the outcome.

Yet some in Ukraine and its backers in NATO see any Ukrainian presence as better than no presence at all.

“The other alternative would be: left out altogether,” the European official said. The official stressed that would be a “more negative message about the NATO community’s support to Ukraine.”

Last year, Kyiv campaigned for an immediate invitation to join the NATO alliance. This year, Zelenskyy would likely be happy just to see last year’s language supporting Kyiv’s “irreversible path” to NATO membership remain, though even that is uncertain. Rutte expressed support for such language Monday ahead of the summit.

“The prospects [of an invitation to NATO right now] now are zero. Prospects in the future are good,” argued Giedrimas Jeglinskas, chair of the National Security and Defense Committee in Lithuania’s parliament and a former NATO official. “At this point, the main goal is to keep the language regarding inevitability of Ukraine membership intact.”

With the U.S. not expected to provide additional security assistance and remaining funds running low, Kyiv is seeking a commitment from Trump that his administration will allow Ukraine and its European allies to buy American weapons for its forces to use on the battlefield, according to the person who speaks regularly with Ukrainian officials.

“The point is it's pretty much dry and not going to be refilled,” the person said. “The Ukrainians have realized they need to figure out how they can buy weapons on their own.”

Ukraine would also like to see the U.S. impose more sanctions on Russia now that it has refused to go along with Trump’s ceasefire efforts, though few expect Trump to commit to that as he continues to talk about reaching a deal with Moscow.

“Sanctions cost us a lot of money. It costs the U.S. a lot of money. You are talking about billions and billions of dollars,” Trump said last week at the G7, as he mused about readmitting Russia to the group. Russia was kicked out of the G8 in 2014 after it invaded Crimea.

William Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, argued Ukraine should focus more on the Europeans, given the low expectations for Trump.

“Trump has been hot and cold on Ukraine, and the Europeans have been hot,” said Taylor, who’s now at the Atlantic Council. “My advice for Ukraine is take advantage of that. Don’t worry about Donald Trump. Don’t make that the measure of success.”

“The Europeans, Canadians and the Ukrainians need to be creative about how they can demonstrate their support coming out of this meeting,” he said, arguing that could take the shape of a statement or a separate meeting of some kind, or concrete commitments toward standing up a force to provide troops to Ukraine.

Veronika Melkozerova and Chris Lunday contributed to this report.