The US president may have won over the summit on defence spending, but the alliance’s eastern flank has been exposed

Donald Trump’s big win at the Nato summit may not ease fears around Russian aggression in Ukraine Credit: LUDOVIC MARIN/Pool via REUTERS

Samuel Ramani

26 June 2025

This week’s Nato summit in the Hague was marred by a tragic irony. Donald Trump achieved a major diplomatic victory as his calls for increased European defence spending converted into reality. The final summit declaration text announced Nato’s commitment to spending 5 per cent of its budget on defence and articulated its ironclad support for the Article 5 collective defence clause.

While the US president’s big win should have enhanced Europe’s sense of security against the Russian threat, the Nato summit left the alliance’s eastern flank with a feeling of grave unease. Trump’s inflammatory comments on the ambiguity of Article 5 left the Baltic States questioning whether Nato would confront Russia’s intensifying array of hybrid threats.

The sense of betrayal in Ukraine was even more palpable. The Nato final summit declaration’s refusal to condemn Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelensky’s marginal presence encapsulated the alliance’s growing Ukraine fatigue. While Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary-general, repeated the age-old trope about Ukraine’s irreversible path towards alliance membership, his words felt hollower than ever before.

The Nato summit’s dismissal of Ukraine’s concerns is emblematic of an alarming broader trend. After more than three years of attritional war with Russia, Ukraine finds itself lacking the manpower and weaponry to triumph. During their inflammatory Oval Office meeting with Zelensky, Trump warned that Ukraine was “running low on soldiers” and JD Vance, his vice-president, railed against forced conscription on the Ukrainian streets.

The Ukrainian president responded to these taunts by reversing his long-standing opposition to mobilising Ukrainians aged 18-24. The up-tick in voluntary new recruits has not solved the problem. Russia’s incremental military triumphs around Pokrovsk were enabled by a shortage of Ukrainian defenders and morale in the Ukrainian army’s ranks is dipping due to frictions between the rank-and-file and senior command over tactics. Combat injuries are afflicting Ukraine’s most experienced servicemen and leaving their rookie replacements vulnerable to Russian human wave attacks.

As Trump continues to signal his aversion to open-ended military assistance to Ukraine, war materiel supplies are poised to dry up further. As Russia’s drone and missile barrages against Kyiv intensify, Ukraine is prioritising Patriot air defence systems in its US procurements and is side-lining its past pleas for more sophisticated offensive weapons. The prospects of the US transferring Tomahawk cruise missiles or aircraft that could fully neutralise Russia’s Su-35 advanced stealth fighter jets are remote.

For now, Ukraine can rely on the largest of its European allies to compensate for some of these shortfalls. Germany has received permissions from the US to transfer 125 long-range artillery rockets and 100 Patriot air defence missiles to Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s threats against Germany over the Taurus long-range missiles suggests that Friedrich Merz, its chancellor, might finally be breaking with his predecessor Olaf Scholz’s die-hard restraint. The Netherlands recently transferred the last of its 24 pledged F-16 jets to Ukraine and Norway is mulling a doubling of F-16 deliveries to Ukraine’s air force.

European countries are also playing a critical role in strengthening Ukraine’s domestic arms industry. At the Nato summit, Britain announced plans to fund joint drone production initiatives with Ukraine and Germany built on its recent pledge to invest €5 billion in Ukraine’s long-range missile production capacity.

These promises are music to Zelensky’s ears but are not a panacea for Ukraine’s equipment woes. Ukraine’s domestic arms industry cannot develop fast enough to neutralise North Korea’s military assistance to Russia and Europe’s depleted militaries need to supply Ukraine by ordering new weapons from the US. As Russia launches a multi-pronged offensive against Donetsk, Kharkiv and Sumy, Ukraine is unable to meet its urgent war materiel needs.

Despite these negative headwinds, Ukraine’s unbreakable patriotism and tactical ingenuity can slow Russia’s advance. Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander Oleksandry Syrskyi’s declaration that Ukraine has stopped Russia’s offensive in Sumy and the Operation Spiderweb attack on Russian strategic bombers encapsulate these invaluable traits.

Russia’s unwillingness to de-escalate the war despite staggering casualties and frustratingly slow gains suggests that Ukraine cannot rely on resolve alone. This realisation is turning Ukrainians who idolised Western economic and democratic institutions into cynics, and damaging Ukraine’s long-term prospects of integrating into the Trans-Atlantic security orbit.

While Trump and Rutte hailed defence spending increases that should increase Nato’s long-term resilience, the Nato joint declaration’s marginalisation of Ukraine undoes many of the benefits of the system. Long-term security is impossible if we surrender to Russia in Ukraine.