WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine urges NATO to lift restrictions on targeting Russia
Ukraine on Thursday urged NATO allies to lift restrictions on its use of long-range weapons against targets in Russia, saying that would be "game-changer" in its war with Moscow, while China slammed NATO criticism of its support for Russia as biased and malicious.
NATO members issued a declaration in support of Ukraine at a summit in Washington on Wednesday, promising additional aid and pledging to back its "irreversible path" to NATO membership.
"At this summit we are turning a corner and putting in place the foundations for Ukraine to prevail," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference after a three-day meeting in Washington of the 32 NATO states.
"Today, we send a strong message of unity and resolve to Moscow that violence and intimidation do not pay, and that Ukraine can count on NATO now for the long haul."
Near the end of the summit on Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "President Putin," before correcting himself, in a mix up likely to add fuel to calls for him to quit the 2024 presidential race.
In a press conference shortly after, Biden made another verbal slip, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump."
Zelenskiy earlier called on allies to preserve their unified support of Ukraine and said new aid had to be delivered quickly.
"If we want to win, if we want to prevail, to save our country and to defend it, we need to lift all the limitations," he said.
Zelenskiy's cabinet chief Andryi Yermak told a public forum Russia had no restrictions on its use of weapons and it would be "a real game-changer" if Ukraine's allies could lift all limits on the use of those they supply to Ukraine.
NATO members have taken different approaches to how Ukraine can use weapons they donate. Some have made clear Kyiv can use them to strike targets deep inside Russia while the United States has taken a narrower approach, allowing its weapons to be used only just inside Russia's border against targets supporting Russian military operations in Ukraine.
Biden told the press conference the United States had allowed Zelenskiy to use American weapons in a limited way within Russia's borders.
"If he had the ability to strike Moscow, strike the Kremlin, would that make sense? It wouldn't," he added.
Biden said he and U.S. military and intelligence officials were making decisions on "a day-to-day basis on how far they should go in. That's a logical thing to do."
The United States and its allies have used this week's summit to try to project unity in the face of what they see as a rising threat to Europe from Russia and China.
However, NATO member Hungary said ahead of a meeting of NATO members with partners from the so-called Indo-Pacific Four - Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea - that it does not want NATO to become an "anti-China" bloc, and will not support it doing so.
Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto also told Hungarian state television that Ukraine's admission to the military alliance would weaken unity in the group.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban irked other NATO members with surprise visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing in the past two weeks on a self-styled "peace mission". He and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will meet on Thursday at the latter's Florida home, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.
Orban's meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin in particular angered some fellow NATO allies, who said the trip handed legitimacy to Putin's claims to Ukrainian territory seized since Russia's 2022 invasion.
Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told a public forum he would not speculate on whether Orban's trip to Moscow was coordinated with Trump, Biden's rival in the November U.S. election, but said the Ukrainians had grave misgivings about any effort to negotiate a peace deal without them.
"So whatever adventurism is being undertaken without Ukraine's consent or support is not something that's consistent with our policy, the foreign policy of the United States," he said.
ANGRY WORDS FROM CHINA
Wednesday's NATO declaration included sharp words about China, calling it "a decisive enabler" of Russia's war in Ukraine, and said Beijing continues to pose systemic challenges to Europe and to security.
China's Foreign Ministry said the declaration was biased and "sowing discord" and its mission to the European Union described it as being "full of Cold War mentality and belligerent rhetoric, and China-related content full of provocations, lies, incitement and smears."
At the news conference, Stoltenberg recalled language in the declaration by saying that "China cannot continue to fuel the largest military conflict in Europe without this impacting Beijing's interests and reputation."
China has repeatedly lashed out at NATO criticisms and has warned against its expansion into the Indo-Pacific.
Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia have forged stronger ties with NATO amid rising concerns over China's pressure on rival claimants in disputed waters in the region and on democratic Taiwan, the global hub of cutting-edge chip production, which Beijing claims as its own.
PROJECTING UNITY
Fears that the U.S. presidential election could yield a sharp change in Washington's support for Ukraine and NATO have loomed over the Washington meetings.
On Wednesday, Trump, who has questioned the value of NATO in the past and pressed congressional Republicans to stall military aid for Ukraine before later reversing course, claimed Ukraine would not have been attacked had he been president. He cited his "good relationship with President Putin."
Biden's uneven performance in a June 27 debate against Trump and low public approval ratings have raised fresh doubts about his mental fitness to stand again, with 13 Democratic members of Congress and one Democratic senator calling for him to step aside.
Zelenskiy met both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Washington on Wednesday. He is keen to cement ties with U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle in the event that Trump is reelected.
A NATO declaration said the allies would provide at least 40 billion euros ($43 billion) in military aid to Ukraine within the next year, although they stopped short of the multi-year commitment Stoltenberg had sought.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Either NATO or Ukraine must go – Medvedev
NATO’s declaration that Ukraine’s eventual membership of the US-led military bloc is “irreversible” means that either the nation or the alliance – and preferably both – should disappear, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has said.
A joint statement adopted by the leaders of NATO states during a summit in Washington this week expressed support for Ukraine’s “right to choose its own security arrangements,” and declared that it is on an “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.”
Russia has consistently said that Ukraine’s accession to NATO would cross a ‘red line’. It cited the expansion of the bloc in Europe as one of the key triggers of the current hostilities with Kiev.
“The conclusion is obvious. We have to do everything to make sure that the ‘irreversible path of Ukraine’ towards NATO ends with either the disappearance of Ukraine, or the disappearance of NATO. Better, both,”Medvedev said on Thursday.
The wording of the joint statement, according to media reports, was intended to appease Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, who has claimed that his nation deserves to be fast-tracked into NATO in gratitude for fighting to supposedly “defend” the West from Russia. But member states, including the US, have made it clear that Ukraine will not be able to join them as a full participant while the conflict remains unresolved.
Kiev has signed numerous bilateral security agreements with Western nations in recent months in lieu of guarantees provided for under the NATO Treaty. The most recent pact was finalized with Luxembourg this week.
Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, previously called for caution in the event that Kiev made a U-turn and accepted Russia’s conditions for a negotiated peace.
He argued that such a deal, which would include Kiev’s renunciation of its NATO aspirations, could lead to a new coup in Ukraine and an even more radical government eventually seizing power.
In that scenario, he said, hostilities would resume and Ukraine’s statehood would be lost for good. But “the enemies of Russia will not go anywhere” and will “gather strength for a new attempt to destroy our country,”Medvedev predicted.
Reuters/RT