NATO’s summit skipped Ukrainian membership again. Kyiv’s answer: build the coalitions — and the missiles — itself.

BY BRIAN WHITMORE

 July 16, 2026

Brian Whitmore is a contributor writing for Independence Avenue Media. The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of Independence Avenue Media.

Not very long ago, the final declaration of this year’s NATO summit in Ankara would have been remarkable for what it did not contain. There was no mention whatsoever of Ukraine’s eventual membership in the alliance. The same was the case for the 2025 summit in The Hague.

Contrast this with the final declaration of the Washington summit in 2024, which said unequivocally that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO” and pledged to support Kyiv “on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.” Similarly, the final communique of the alliance’s 2023 summit in Vilnius reaffirmed that “Ukraine will become a member of NATO” and noted that it already “has become increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the Alliance.”

Ukraine did get significant deliverables from the summit. The European allies and Canada (but notably not the United States) pledged 70 billion euros in military assistance for this year and an equal amount for 2027. U.S. President Donald Trump said he would provide Ukraine licenses to manufacture Patriotinterceptors, although the details about how that would work remain murky.

And, of course, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy provided the summit’s most viral and memorable moment. During a joint press conference, Trump asked Zelenskyy if he would be willing to go to Moscow to meet Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian president didn’t miss a beat. “It’s difficult because there are a lot of Ukrainian drones there. It’s dangerous,” Zelenskyy retorted to raucous laughter.

The absence of references to Ukraine’s NATO membership in the past two summit declarations is a reflection of Trump’s apparent opposition to Ukraine joining the alliance. But there was also a noticeable lack of angst about the omission from Kyiv and its backers this year.

And that may be because there is another important dynamic at play. With the alliance in transition and the American commitment in doubt, the much-discussed — and often maligned — “coalition of the willing” appears to be getting serious.

Just days after the Ankara summit wrapped up, Ukraine and nine NATO members — Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom — agreed to establish what they called an Integrated Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition at a meeting in Paris on July 13. In a statement, the 10 countries said “we aim to build a shared antiballistic missile capacity for Europe.” Zelenskyy lauded the initiative, stressing that “our top priority is anti-ballistic defense.”

This is a significant development. With Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and civilians escalating, ballistic missile defense is the most serious gap in Kyiv’s capabilities.

Ukraine’s advanced drone technology has been a game changer in the war. Kyiv has used its long-range drone capacity and its newly developed long-range Flamingo cruise missiles to devastating effect, carrying out deadly and accurate strikes on energy and military infrastructure deep inside Russia.

At the front, Ukraine has deployed its medium-range drone strike capacity to neutralize Moscow’s manpower advantage, disrupt logistics, slow Russian deployments and turn Crimea into a supply-line death trap

Ukraine has also employed a highly integrated and multilayered drone defense system to intercept Russian drone attacks.

But with global stocks of Patriot missile interceptors depleted, and Russia increasing production of ballistic missiles, Ukraine remains vulnerable to aerial assaults on its cities.

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The Ukrainian defense firm Fire Point, which developed the Flamingo and has been on the cutting edge of Kyiv’s drone program, is now emerging as a central player in the new coalition as well — leading its flagship program for a pan-European air defense system, called Project Freyja. It is intended as a more affordable alternative to the U.S.-made Patriot. Fire Point aims to produce 2,000 missile interceptors per year. Writing in The New York Times, veteran defense correspondent Nicholas Kulish noted that“Fire Point has emerged as a national champion in the effort to take the fight to Moscow.”

The Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition is not the only “coalition of the willing” emerging among the European allies and Ukraine. The Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8) — comprising Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden — is also forming a coalition with Ukraine on joint European defense.

A joint statement of NB8 foreign ministers in April pledged to “deepen the defense cooperation with Ukraine, recognize the critical role of modern technologies on the battlefield and share the understanding that Ukraine is also a contributor to the security of its partners.” And a widely circulated report by the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies stressed that “to unlock the full potential of NB8-Ukraine cooperation, both sides must move beyond transactional co-production towards structured joint capability development.”

All of this, of course, does not make NATO membership irrelevant for Ukraine. The alliance’s Article 5 collective defense security guarantee remains the gold standard.

But the alliance is in transition. As NATO faces an aggressive and revanchist Russia while managing a mercurial and unpredictable America, Ukraine has become a driving force in the emerging Europeanization of European security. In this new architecture, Ukraine is not just a security consumer, but a key supplier.

Brian Whitmore

Brian Whitmore is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Eurasia Center, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Texas-Arlington, and host of The Power Vertical Podcast.

Commentary: Ukraine’s Coalitions of the Willing — And Able