- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accepted support from allies who have provided him with new military aid and a path to joining NATO.
- But Zelensky also said Ukraine cannot win the war with Russia unless restrictions on the use of U.S. weapons to attack military targets inside Russia are lifted.
- A devastating missile attack by Russia on the eve of NATO's 75th anniversary summit underlined that Putin may not be ready to make peace for some time.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday embraced support from allies who have provided substantial new military aid and a path to joining NATO, while pushing hard for faster aid delivery and lifting restrictions on the use of U.S. weapons to strike military targets inside Russia.
“If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country and defend it, we need to lift all restrictions,” Zelenskyy said alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the final hours of a summit where Ukraine received new arms commitments and other support to bolster its defense against Russia.
The summit unfolded against the backdrop of a tumultuous U.S. political cycle, with growing angst among Democrats over President Joe Biden's ability to serve another four years after a shocking debate failure two weeks ago that cast doubt on the future of his presidency.
NATO APPEARS DIVIDED IN PRESSURING BIDEN TO LIFT ATTACK BANS OVER UKRAINIAN OFFENSE
An ill-timed verbal gaffe on Thursday night did little to calm concerns, when Biden, at an event to unveil a deal called the Ukraine Pact, mistakenly introduced Zelenskyy as Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Some in the room gasped at Biden's gaffe, which the US president quickly tried to rectify by saying: “President Putin? You're going to beat President Putin,” Biden told Zelensky. “I'm so focused on beating Putin that we have to worry about that.”
Britain’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer, and French president Emmanuel Macron declined to criticize Biden. Macron said “we can all have a slip of the tongue” and claimed that Biden, with whom he spoke over dinner on Wednesday, “is very much on top of everything.” Starmer refused at least five times to respond directly to Biden’s gaffe, instead praising him for his leadership and his preparedness to host the event and secure strong results for Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speak during a news conference at the NATO summit in Washington, July 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
All eyes were on Biden as he closed the summit of 32 NATO leaders in Washington with a news conference.
Asked about Zelensky's call for greater freedom to attack Russian forces, Biden showed no sign of easing U.S. limits, saying he was following the advice of his defense and intelligence officials.
“If he had the ability to attack Moscow, attack the Kremlin, would that make sense?” Biden said of Zelenskyy. He added: “We're deciding day by day … how far they should go” on Russian territory.
Ukraine has been the main focus of attention for European and North American leaders at the summit of the 75-year-old military alliance, with Biden announcing earlier in the day a new military aid package and promising Zelenskyy: “We will stick with you, period.”
While Zelenskyy publicly welcomed the package and NATO leaders' pledge that Ukraine is now on an “irreversible path” toward membership in the military alliance, he also sounded an alarm: Ukraine cannot win the war with Russia, now in its third year, unless the United States ends limits on the use of its weapons to attack military targets in Russia.
The Biden administration is allowing Ukraine to fire weapons into Russian territory only for the purpose of counterattacking Russian forces that are attacking or preparing to attack them, concerned that the broader use of U.S.-made weaponry could provoke Russia to expand the war.
Zelenskyy has been pushing for greater latitude so that U.S. weapons can be used to attack critical military bases and facilities deep inside Russian territory.
Calls for the restrictions to be lifted have grown in recent months, following Russian military advances as political battles in the United States delayed vital military support for Ukraine.
Stoltenberg and Macron have defended Ukraine's efforts to gain more leeway in using U.S.-supplied weapons. If we tell Ukrainians “they have no right to reach the point from which the missiles are fired, we are actually telling them that we are giving them weapons, but they cannot defend themselves,” Macron said in May.
In a one-on-one meeting with Zelenskyy, Biden touted the aid package as his eighth since taking office, with the latter consisting of $225 million in support, including an additional Patriot missile system to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses against a deadly onslaught of Russian airstrikes.
The Patriot air defense system, the second the United States has provided to Ukraine, is one of several announced this week at the NATO summit and is part of a flurry of pledges to deliver weapons to Ukraine to help it defend itself against Russian attacks, including one of the deadliest of the war this week that hit a children's hospital in kyiv.
The devastating missile attack on the eve of a summit marking NATO's 75th anniversary underlined that Putin may not be ready to make peace for some time.
Commenting on NATO allies declaring Ukraine is on an “irreversible” path to membership, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia's Security Council, which Putin chairs, said Moscow should do everything possible to “make this irreversible path of Ukraine to NATO lead to the disappearance of either Ukraine or NATO, or better yet, both.”
Although they have promised that Ukraine will one day be a member of the alliance, NATO leaders have said it can only join after the war with Russia and when allies agree it has met all conditions.
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In addition to offers of increased military support, NATO launched a new program to fund the delivery of military equipment and coordinate training for Ukraine's beleaguered armed forces. NATO members also pledged to maintain current levels of military aid — about $43.5 billion annually — for at least a year.
The summit has also been overshadowed by concerns about growing support from China and North Korea for the Russian invasion.
The flurry of final developments at the NATO summit comes a day after NATO called China a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war on Ukraine. China, in turn, accused NATO of seeking security at the expense of others and warned the Western military alliance not to bring the same “chaos” to Asia.
