Gulf Strikes Overshadow NATO Summit’s Decisive Day
NATO’s leaders enter the summit’s working day with the Gulf exchange hanging over the agenda, after a first day of billions in announced arms contracts and President Zelensky’s declaration that “Ukraine belongs in NATO”. Zelensky signed drone deals with Denmark, Estonia and the Netherlands; Europe and Canada now fund roughly 90% of Ukraine’s air defences. President Trump meets Zelensky and Syria’s President Sharaa — fresh from the Damascus bombings — later today.
Day two is where the summit’s worth gets decided: the communiqué’s language on Ukraine, the aid package’s composition, and above all the Trump-Zelensky meeting — held days after Russian ballistic missiles went through Kyiv’s defences untouched. A senior alliance official’s arithmetic frames it: some 8,300 Russian munitions launched at Ukraine in May alone. The Sharaa meeting, a first at any NATO summit, proceeds despite two bombings in Damascus in a week — normalisation on a deadline. Rutte insists Washington remains “completely committed”; the force drawdown from Europe says something more complicated. Watch the bilateral readouts this afternoon and the communiqué’s spending language.