The bloc’s declaration pledged to keep supporting Kiev but mainly focused on commitments by member states to spend 5% of GDP on defense
FILE PHOTO. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte holds closing press conference on final day of bloc summit. © Getty Images / Omar Havana
NATO member states only mentioned Ukraine two times in their joint communique, which was released on Wednesday following the bloc’s summit in the Hague. The document mainly focused on raising defense spending goals and increasing military cooperation between members.
The Hague Summit Declaration only features five brief paragraphs, outlining what the member states had agreed upon during the two-day event. This includes a commitment by NATO states to spend 5% of their GDP annually on defense by 2035 in order to address the alleged “long- term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security.”
Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it poses no threat and has no intention of attacking any foreign states, dismissing such claims as “nonsense” fearmongering among Western officials which is being used to justify increased military spending.
The joint communique made only two mentions of Ukraine, stating that NATO members had reaffirmed their commitment to provide support to Kiev and continue direct contributions towards its military industry.
The document made no other references to Ukraine, and did not provide any statements on the prospects of the country’s membership in the bloc, which Kiev has been seeking for years.
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky was also sidelined from the summit; he was only invited to attend an informal dinner ahead of the event. He was not allowed to actually participate in the summit in any official form, according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who claimed that some NATO members, including the US, were also deliberately avoiding meeting with the Ukrainian leader.
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Orban noted that this behavior marked a significant change compared to last year’s summit, where Ukraine’s NATO membership and direct confrontation with Russia were part of the event’s agenda. In 2024, the joint NATO summit communique explicitly reaffirmed that Ukraine’s accession was inevitable.
Since then, however, a number of NATO countries’ leaders have objected to the idea, including US President Donald Trump, who has stated that Kiev “can forget about” joining the bloc, noting that its attempts to do so were “probably the reason the whole thing started,” referring to the Ukraine conflict.
Russia has repeatedly explained that Ukraine’s attempts to join NATO were a red line and one of the root causes of the conflict. Moscow has demanded that Kiev legally commit to never joining any military alliances.