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Ukrainian leaders are mostly satisfied with the results at the NATO
Ukrainian leaders are mostly satisfied with the results at the NATO Summit in Washington — especially since it could’ve gone much worse.

Kyiv didn’t get everything it wanted, but NATO agreed to declare that the country’s eventual membership is “irreversible,” an upgrade from last year’s summit declaration in Lithuania that left Ukrainian leaders fuming about a lack of commitment from the alliance as it fought to halt Russia’s invasion.

Yet leaders are still pleading for more fighter jets, more air defenses, faster pilot training and getting rid of rules on striking inside Russian territory. And the specter of Donald Trump’s return to the White House added an air of uncertainty to the entire proceedings, leaving even seasoned foreign hands to guess as to what the former president will do if he wins in November.

But for now, Ukrainians are ready to take the win.

“Things are better than they were” after last year’s summit in Lithuania, said Yehor Chernev, a Ukrainian parliamentarian at the summit.

There was no chance that Kyiv would be formally invited to become the 33rd member of the alliance while in Washington, as leaders in Kyiv had long since been told no invitation would be forthcoming this week. But the promise it did receive was the result of months of contentious wrangling within the alliance that belies the difficult path ahead for Kyiv, even if the West continues to keep the weapons flowing.
“‘Irreversible,’ OK, but it’s not an invitation yet,” Chernev said.

With the war slogging through what has amounted to a deadly stalemate, expectations have shifted, and the need for more air defenses and other weapons is more pressing to thwart relentless Russian strikes by cruise and ballistic missiles and constant infantry assaults across the front lines.
What is most important for Ukraine right now is that we send them ammunition and also lift restrictions” levied by the U.S. and other allies on using donated weapons such as long-range missiles inside Russia, Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said in an interview.

When it comes to the particular wording of Ukraine’s eventual ascension to NATO, “everybody knows that it wouldn’t happen overnight anyway, so I don’t think we should spend too much time thinking about the wording in relation to this, but concentrate on actually the delivery of material,” Valtonen said.

Diplomats at the summit expressed satisfaction with the language that is allowing NATO to hold Ukraine a little bit closer, but there was little appetite to kick-start the path to full membership any time soon, even from states along the alliance’s eastern front where anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian rhetoric is burning hottest....