VILNIUS—Drafting NATO Summit communiqués is usually less the stuff of high drama and more mind-numbing bureaucracy. But that wasn’t the case this week. The NATO Summit in Lithuania will be remembered both for the public fireworks over Ukraine’s aspirations for Alliance membership and outcomes that included a breakthrough on Swedish membership, the most detailed and robust defense
In a reprise of the accession drama at last year’s NATO Summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan flashed Turkey’s long-awaited green light for Sweden’s NATO membership on the eve of this year’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. But that green light signals much more than “go” for Stockholm: It also signals that Turkey has taken the
The Wagner mutiny in late June was a brief affair, but it is casting a long shadow over Putin’s Russia. In less than forty-eight hours, Wagner chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin and his troops succeeded in shattering the carefully constructed myth of Putin the strongman, while exposing the weakness at the heart of his regime. Although the
The annual NATO summit in Vilnius this week failed to produce the kind of breakthrough toward membership of the alliance that many Ukrainians were hoping for. However, it did offer up ample evidence of continued strong international support for Ukraine in the fight against Russia’s ongoing invasion. Despite widespread recognition that Ukraine’s future must be
As Russia continues its assault on Ukraine, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) is keeping a close eye on Russia’s movements across the military, cyber, and information domains. With more than seven years of experience monitoring the situation in Ukraine—as well as Russia’s use of propaganda and disinformation to undermine the United States, NATO,
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has left it with few friends, but Azerbaijan is an important exception. In fact, Moscow and Baku are effectively allies now. Just two days before the February 2022 invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a wide-ranging political-military agreement, following which Aliyev declared that the pact
Watch the event Online Event Tue, July 11, 2023 • 9:00 am ET NATO Public Forum On the margins of the NATO Summit in Vilnius, the Alliance’s leaders and experts from across the transatlantic community gather for the NATO Public Forum on July 11 – 12. At a time of unprecedented public interest in the
As Ukrainians digested the outcome of the NATO summit on July 11, the mood across the country was one of frustration. While the annual gathering of NATO leaders in Vilnius brought a number of tangible gains for Ukraine including confirmation of new weapons deliveries and the creation of a coalition to train Ukrainian pilots to
JUST IN It’s a fast track with a slow start. NATO leaders meeting in Vilnius today released their summit communiqué, in which they said that Ukraine no longer needs to complete a membership action plan to join the Alliance—but that an invitation would only be extended “when allies agree and conditions are met.” In the
JUST IN The wait is (nearly) over. After more than a year of ups and downs since Sweden applied to join NATO in May 2022, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has agreed to back Stockholm’s bid to become the Alliance’s thirty-second member. The announcement came on the eve of the NATO Summit in Vilnius after
