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“Daddy’s home,” proclaimed the White House, hailing Donald Trump’s return from last week’s Nato summit. That social media post was a reference — at once triumphant and mocking — to the title bestowed on Trump by Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary-general. Rutte might reason that demeaning himself is a small price to pay to keep the alliance together. And European leaders did seem broadly content, after the first Nato summit of Trump’s second term.
Fears of the US president walking out of the summit — or even the alliance itself — did not come to pass. All the European members of Nato have now committed to spending 5 per cent of GDP on defence — broadly defined.
One European leader lists three major achievements from the summit. First, Nato has refocused on its key mission — which is the deterrence of Russia. Second, the alliance is returning to cold war levels of defence spending, in response to Russia’s continuing military build-up. Third, as European defence spending rises, Nato will become a more balanced alliance between the US and Europe.
The fact that the Nato summit took place just after the US military strikes on Iran also changed the atmosphere. Trump arrived in a good mood — and his willingness to bomb Iran’s Fordow nuclear site allayed European fears that he will always shy away from the use of force. Trump also had a friendly meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, repairing some of the damage that was done after the two leaders’ disastrous White House meeting in February.
But while things are going better for Ukraine diplomatically, the war itself seems to be going worse. Some Nato leaders fear that the situation on the frontline could deteriorate seriously by this autumn. That would be far more significant than any paper commitments made in last week’s Nato communiqué. Military assessments suggest that both the Russian and Ukrainian militaries are nearing the point of exhaustion. But while Russia can probably keep up the current level of operations for another year, Ukraine may reach a breaking point within six months — if it does not receive significant new military support.
Following the positive Zelenskyy-Trump meeting, there are hopes that Ukraine may receive fresh supplies from the US of Patriot missile-defence systems, as well as Himars artillery rockets. With Ukraine’s air defences stretched thin, the Patriots are badly needed. But, as ever, Trump was vague about providing new munitions — and could easily change his mind or forget.
There are also some shortfalls — in particular in Ukrainian troop numbers — that the country’s western allies cannot fix. Russia is now thought to have lost more than a million troops, killed or wounded, in the conflict. But Ukrainian losses have also been heavy and Russia’s population is about four times larger than Ukraine’s.
The increased intensity of Russian missile attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities is also damaging Ukrainian morale. Without a clear vision of victory — or at least of an end to the war — a sense of hopelessness risks descending over the country.
The change in mood inside the Ukrainian government is reflected in the urgency with which it is now privately calling for a ceasefire. A year or two ago, such calls would have been regarded as defeatism. Now they are made with increasing insistence in closed-door meetings between Ukrainian and western leaders.
But there is little belief among European policymakers that Russia is in any mood to agree a ceasefire. One well-placed official thinks that Russia’s central goal now is to capture Odesa — which Vladimir Putin regards as a historically Russian city. Without Odesa, Ukraine would lose access to its main port.
A group of former European leaders — including Carl Bildt of Sweden and Sanna Marin of Finland — visited Ukraine recently and picked up on the deteriorating mood. They wrote afterwards that “while Ukrainians will never stop resisting, without more military support, Ukraine can lose more territory. More cities might be captured.” Off the record, some western officials are even bleaker, warning of a risk of “catastrophic failure”, if the Ukrainian military is stretched to breaking point — and does not receive a significant increase in military and financial aid from its western allies.
Of course, wars are unpredictable and moods can shift. Some in the west argue that Ukraine can hold its own over the coming year. They claim that, despite enormous efforts and losses, Russia has only succeeded in capturing an additional 0.25 per cent of Ukrainian territory over the past year. The optimists argue that Ukrainians’ expertise in drone warfare has made it impossible for large groups of Russian troops to advance en masse. They also argue that — even if Russia breaks through Ukrainian lines — it lacks the mechanised divisions to capitalise on the achievement.
The received wisdom has been proved wrong many times before in this war. But if the growing pessimism among those following the Ukraine war closely is justified, then any feel-good sentiments generated by the Nato summit may soon disappear. Nato’s secretary-general is known for his upbeat nature and permanent smile. But even Rutte could struggle to keep smiling by the end of the year.
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