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Handout photo shows Left to right: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Ukraine) with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Vilnius. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to the NATO Summit on Wednesday July 12, 2023, ahead of the inaugural meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Ukraine gets a NATO promise, sort of
NATO allies will reportedly announce today that Ukraine’s progress towards joining the organization is “irreversible.” The language will appear in the joint communiqué released by the alliance to conclude its three-day summit in Washington.
But when, precisely, that irreversible momentum will culminate in a NATO membership card for Kyiv is still no clearer now than it was three days ago.
Reports suggest that the allies spent hours hashing out how explicit to make any conditions in the text, but there seem to be two main hurdles: ending the war with Russia, and getting Ukraine’s governing and military institutions up to NATO-level snuff.
Neither of those things will happen anytime soon, which is why NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was clear earlier in the week that Ukraine’s membership is, in fact, still far off.
For Ukraine, then, it’s a mixed bag. A great vote of confidence from the world’s largest military alliance, yes. But no actual deterrent against a Kremlin which will, naturally, view the language as a provocation.
The alliance has, however, redoubled its commitment to helping Ukraine defend itself, announcing a $43 billion aid package, while the US said additional air defenses – as well as the first batch of F-16 fighter jets – were all on their way to Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen sit in a F-16 fighter jet at Skrydstrup Airbase in Vojens, Denmark, August 20, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Ukraine finally getting F-16s, Hooliganism ahead of Euro semifinal, Snake smuggling in China, Rwanda says no refund to the UK
60: NATO countries have started transferring US-made F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, the White House announced on Wednesday. Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Belgium have pledged to provide roughly 60 of the fighter jets to Ukraine amid its war with Russia. Kyiv has been pushing for NATO countries to provide F-16s for well over a year. This first batch is being donated by the Dutch and Danish, though it’s unclear precisely how many are being sent at this time.
5: Hooliganism continues to plague the beautiful game … At least five people were injured in Dortmund, Germany, in clashes between Dutch and English football (soccer) fans ahead of the Euro 2024 semifinal between the two countries on Wednesday. Some of the violence was reportedly linked to Dutch fans attacking English fans in bars and attempting to steal flags.
100: In the immortal words of Indiana Jones, “Snakes … why’d it have to be snakes?” A man attempted to smuggle over 100 live snakes into China by hiding them in his pants but was caught by customs officials. He was apparently traveling with a wide variety of reptiles and packed them into drawstring canvas bags sealed with tape that were discovered in his pockets.
280 million: Rwanda says it’s not refunding the UK for a now-defunct deal for asylum-seekers to be deported to the landlocked African country. The UK provided Rwanda with roughly $280 million as part of the controversial scheme pushed by the prior Conservative government, though no deportations ever occurred, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the plan is now dead. The UK on Monday expressed hope it would get some of the funds back, but Rwanda on Wednesday said that wasn’t part of the agreement. “If you come and ask for cooperation and then withdraw, that’s your decision,” said Alain Mukuralinda, a Rwandan government spokesperson, adding, “Good luck.”
Russia-Ukraine reality check
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your week. I think it's a good time to talk about Russia. Vladimir Putin, just back from a trip to the Hermit Kingdom. Not many people go there. And those that do frequently don't come back. North Korea. Kim Jong un.
Lots of pomp and showing of very close friendship, engagement, alignment. Kim Jong un said that they're now allies. Putin notedly did not use that terminology, and I'm sure advisedly. So, first time that Putin has been there in decades. And lots of ways to think about it. I mean, on the one hand, you can say that Putin's reduced to traveling to meet the world's worst dictator because there are very few countries in the world that are willing to provide wholehearted support for Russia's illegal invasion into Ukraine. The Iranians will. The North Koreans will. The Syrians and Belarus. And that's kind of about it. And so that doesn't speak very well for Putin being able to get weapons, for example, to continue to fight his war. Even the Chinese won't do that because they're worried about US and other knock on secondary sanctions. So, you know, that's the positive spin that you can put on this from the United States and the NATO position.
But there's a negative spin too, and that is that Russia is increasingly allied with a very dangerous nuclear country with cyber capabilities, history of human trafficking, illegal drug transit and export, and a country that is already maximally sanctioned that benefits from chaos, and that previously their top friend was China who wanted more stability in the global order.
And the Russians certainly don't. So this provides cover for North Koreans to cause more trouble vis-à-vis South Korea and Japan and the rest of the world, and also gives lots of weaponry to the Russians and lots of technology to North Korea, none of which is good, not good for the world at all. And while it's true that Russia is isolated in terms of its war and its war goals, that doesn't mean that it's isolated.
And what I mean by that is the willingness of the United States and Europe to put really tough sanctions on Russia. I mean, the kind of sanctions that would reduce Russia and its ability to fight the war. They're not there. They're not there. They talk tough. But the reality is Russia is the largest country in the world geographically and within that territory. They have an awful lot of very important natural resources. They've got oil, they've got gas, they've got platinum, they've got diamonds, they've got uranium, they've got food, they've got fertilizer. And the United States and Europe, if they were so concerned about the war in Ukraine that they were truly willing to cut that off, they could. But it would cost them.
It would cost them because the world would be in a global recession out of not getting that oil and gas. It would cost them because a lot of the nuclear plants in the West wouldn't have uranium, and the prices would go way up. And they don't want to spend that money. And it would cost them because a lot of people in the Global South would starve, because they wouldn't have access to the food and fertilizer, except at a higher cost that they can't afford to pay. And the West isn't willing to pay that cost to take that risk and to squeeze the Russians that hard. They're willing to make the Russians less profitable in terms of the oil and gas they sell. They're willing to freeze and even increasingly seize hundreds of billions in Russian assets and use that to fund the Ukrainians, because it's better than having to pay for the Ukrainians yourself.
But that's very different from saying we're going to force the Russians to pay a price that they would be unwilling to pay. The price that the Russians are presently paying is at the margins. It isn’t an existential for Putin, and it's certainly a much lower cost than he's willing to exact for continued war on the ground in Ukraine, territorial conquest, and perhaps the ability to remove Zelenskyy in the future and have someone that is more aligned with his sensibilities. That's where we are. And the reality there is that Russia can keep on keeping on as a consequence.
Now, you know, we saw, this peace conference, as it's called, supporting Zelensky with representatives of over 90 countries and over 40 heads of state and heads of government. And it was an impressive display in Switzerland just a couple of weeks ago. But it's also true that behind the scenes, Zelensky really, really, really wanted to have that meeting. And the Americans and many NATO allies were saying, maybe not so fast, because of course, every time you have one of these big global shows of support, you lose a little bit of the urgency and the support you show that there are fewer countries that are willing to support you as much as they were six months before, 12 months before. The Chinese didn't show up, the Indians showed up at a relatively low level. They didn't sign on to the ultimate memorandum. Neither did the Saudis. I mean, you know, this is an issue, right? The fact is that NATO is very strongly supportive of Ukraine and of continuing to allow them to have the types of support to defend themselves and rebuild their country. The Global South is increasingly “let's have a cease fire right now.” And China is “let's have a cease fire right now and we're kind of more in the Russian camp than we are in the West camp or in Ukraine's camp.” And Putin sees that and he sees that over time, if he waits these countries out, the likelihood that he'll end up in a better position than the Ukrainians goes up.
And this is why when you talk to members of NATO and you say, well, what's your position on negotiations? And their public statements are, look, it's it's completely up to the Ukrainians to decide. The reality is that you'll need to pressure the Ukrainians, both with carrots and sticks, to get to a place where you can negotiate, even if the Russians aren't yet ready to do that. And they aren't in reality though Putin says, “sure, I'll negotiate if you move out of the territories that I've illegally annexed, including those that you're presently occupying.” That's a nonstarter. But you have to get the Ukrainian there. You have to prepare them to be there.
And there are a couple of ways you do that, right? One is you give the Ukrainians the support to rebuild their country. You fast track them into the European Union, so they have a shot at better rule of law, improving their democracy, reducing their corruption that gives them a future. And you also give them some harder security guarantees for the parts of their territory that Russia hasn't occupied and hasn't illegally annexed. And if you do all of those things, you're in a better position to get the Ukrainians to the negotiating table.
You provide more cover to Zelensky or the future leaders of Ukraine and the future leaders of Ukraine. And you also make it more compelling multilaterally before you're in a position where Ukraine gets thrown under the bus as they might, for example, if Trump wins, come November, as they might, for example, if Le Pen gets a majority, in the European, in the French Parliament, and then the French are suddenly vetoing European additional gives to Ukraine.
I mean, this is the problem is that a lot of the uncertainty about Ukraine isn't only about what Russia does, isn’t only about Ukrainian capacity, but it's also keeping that multilateral effort, which has been strong and united together. And there have been a couple of almost misses, especially the US, the six months getting them $61 billion, but also coming up with the electoral cycles. And the longer you push that out, the more dangerous it is for Ukraine and ultimately for the NATO alliance. So that's a little bit of the sort of real talk about what's happening in Russia and Ukraine on the back of the news of the past week. As always, what you want to happen is not the same as analysis.
And if it is, it means that your analysis is crap. That is not what we do here. And I hope all of you have a great week. Talk to you soon.
Yoon Suk-yeol, the presidential election candidate of South Korea's main opposition People Power Party (PPP), speaks during a news conference at the party's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea January 24, 2022.
South Korea considers sending weapons to Ukraine
Well, if North Korea is going to cozy up to Russia like that, South Korea isn’t going to just sit there, is it?
No, it’s not. Following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Pyongyang on Wednesday, where he and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un celebrated their “fiery friendship” and inked a new strategic alliance, Seoul said it could start sending weapons directly to Kyiv to help Ukraine repel Russia.
That would mark a dramatic change from South Korea’s current policy of supporting US and EU sanctions against Russia while arming Ukraine only indirectly – by selling high-tech weaponry to Poland, which in turn has sent its own, Soviet-era equipment to Ukraine.
Kyiv, for its part, is keen to secure more firepower as Russia grinds its way deeper into Eastern Ukraine. These weapons “could have a meaningful impact on battlefield dynamics and potentially cause Moscow to reconsider the cost at which its burgeoning partnership with Pyongyang has come,” says Jeremy Chan, an East Asia expert at Eurasia Group.
Putin did not take kindly to the announcement, warning South Korea that arming Ukraine would be "a big mistake" and that Moscow "will... [make] decisions which are unlikely to please the current leadership of South Korea" if Seoul proceeds.
Meanwhile, Korean peninsula tensions are growing, as Seoul deepens its military coordination with the US and Japan, while Pyongyang has been testing more missiles and, of course, sending those gifts of garbage and excrement across the 38th parallel.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. President Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and World Bank President Ajay Banga attend a Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) event, on the first day of the G7 summit, in Savelletri, Italy, June 13, 2024.
G7 strikes compromise on Ukraine funding
Both Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden flew to Italy this week for G7 meetings, where they pledged to strengthen the coalition supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russian invaders.
The G7 countries are expected to agree to lend Ukraine about $50 billion for reconstruction, backing the loan by using the interest accruing on $300 billion worth of Russian assets that were frozen by Western financial institutions after the invasion.
The move is a grand compromise between countries, like Canada, which have called for outright seizure of those assets in order to give them directly to Ukraine, and countries in Europe, where many of the assets are located, which have pushed back, citing issues of rule of law and precedent for other investors.
Putting the deal in practice will still require some complicated financial and legal chicanery, say experts, but the sense of urgency comes in part from concerns about the US Presidential election this fall.
Polls continue to show Biden, a strong supporter of Ukraine, trailing Donald Trump, who has shown little interest in helping Kyiv.
The asset-interest scheme is seen as a way to lock in a stream of Western financing for Ukraine that exists independently of any changing political winds in Washington.
Is the US aid to Ukraine too little, too late?
Former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder says the last six months of Ukraine's war with Russia may have been a critical juncture. He underscores Ukraine's urgent need for additional capabilities, especially manpower and ammunition, which the US has been slow to supply.
"[The Russians] just have more people, they have more guns, and they, importantly, it looks like they have more and better morale, which makes them willing to do things that otherwise people aren't willing to do."
Daalder calls for a serious discussion about the West's role in aiding Ukraine and the potential consequences of inaction. To put it simply, Daalder says there's much more that the US could be doing. "We have military power, we have capabilities; we could send in larger quantities. We have troops."
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
Is Russia winning the war in Ukraine?
What would Ukraine’s defeat look like? Over two years into this bloody conflict, Russia has never been as close to victory as it is today. “When the history of this war is written,” former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder tells Ian Bremmer, “I think we’ll look back on the last six months as really… the turning point." Daalder joins Bremmer on the latest episode of GZERO World from Tallinn, Estonia, just a couple hundred miles from the Russian border.
"We need to start having a conversation about how serious this is, and are we going to accept this?" In a sobering and wide-ranging interview, Daalder outlines Russia's advantage on the battlefield today. “They just have more people, they have more guns, and importantly, it looks like they have more and better morale, which makes them willing to do things that otherwise people aren't willing to do."
How much is this battlefield mismatch due to a delay in US support? A big part of it, says Daalder. “Congress refusing to act on the requests that the president first made back in July…and nothing happening until mid-April” was a major blow to Ukraine’s defenses, Daalder says. “And now it just takes time to get stuff to the front and get it across the border and to the units in the quantities to make it happen.”
Is it too late for the West to help Ukraine ward off total defeat? And what would lasting peace, as remote as it might seem now, look like?
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
Ian Explains: Putin's Ukraine gamble
Is Ukraine losing the war? A year and a half ago, Russia was in bad shape. Moscow was struggling to resupply troops on the front lines, its naval fleet in the Black Sea was decimated, and troop casualty estimates were as high as half a million. However, a disappointing Ukrainian counteroffensive and a six-month delay in crucial US military aid gave Moscow an opportunity to rearm and regroup.
On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer examines the state of the battlefield in Ukraine and unpacks how Russia has been able to take territory in recent weeks at a faster clip than at any point during the war. In a sign of just how badly the situation is deteriorating, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky abruptly canceled all international trips to focus on the Russian offensive, a huge problem for a leader who needs to lobby governments for military and economic aid individually.
All eyes will be on this year’s NATO Summit in Washington, DC, where Western leaders are trying to lock in as many security guarantees for Kyiv as possible ahead of the alliance’s 75th anniversary. The problem is that they don’t have much time to figure it out.