NATO Closes Ankara Summit With $80bn Ukraine Pledge
NATO’s leaders closed their Ankara summit pledging $80bn to Ukraine’s defence needs this year and next, and reaffirming the “ironclad” Article 5 commitment to collective defence, in a declaration citing “the long-term threat Russia poses”. Secretary-General Rutte pressed allies for credible plans to reach 5% of GDP on defence by 2035. Sir Keir Starmer, at his final summit as Prime Minister, urged unity and called it a “huge privilege” to represent Britain, insisting the American president had made no issue of UK defence spending with him.
The declaration’s brevity was the achievement: keeping thirty-two members, a US drawdown from Europe and a president who spent the week reopening the Greenland dispute inside one agreed text. Zelensky told the summit his forces are “eliminating” some 30,000 Russian troops a month, pressing his case that the $80bn buys results. For Starmer the summit is a valediction — his call for unity and his insistence that spending never came up read as a caretaker managing his exit, with the 5% pathway and the bill passing to Andy Burnham within a fortnight. Watch whether the communiqué’s spending language survives contact with the incoming government.