NATO marks 75th birthday as Russia’s war in Ukraine gnaws at its unity

BRUSSELS (AP):

NATO on Thursday marked 75 years of collective defence across Europe and North America, with its top diplomats vowing to stay the course in Ukraine as better-armed Russian troops assert control on the battlefield.

The anniversary comes as the now-32-nation alliance weighs a plan to provide more predictable longer-term military support to Ukraine. Plagued by ammunition shortages, Ukraine this week lowered the military conscription age from 27 to 25 in an effort to replenish its depleted ranks and appealed for additional air defences to counter Russian ballistic missile attacks.

“I didn’t want to spoil the birthday party for NATO, but I felt compelled to deliver a sobering message on behalf of Ukrainians about the state of Russian air attacks on my country, destroying our energy system, our economy, killing civilians,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who attended a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council.

Kuleba thanked the allies for agreeing to begin identifying Patriot missile battery stocks that could be sent to Ukraine. The Patriot “is the only system that effectively intercepts ballistic missiles,” he said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking before meeting with Kuleba, said that “support for Ukraine, the determination of every country represented here at NATO, remains rock solid.”

“We will do everything we can, allies will do everything that they can, to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to continue to deal with Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, aggression that is getting worse with every passing day,” he said.

“The fight that Ukraine has on its hands is not only Ukraine’s fight, it’s everyone’s fight because the aggression being committed by Russia is not only an aggression against Ukraine and its people, it’s an aggression against the very principles that lie at the heart of the international system,” Blinken said.

The Ukraine meeting, which ran significantly beyond its scheduled time, was held after a ceremony to mark the day NATO’s founding treaty was signed: April 4, 1949, in Washington. A bigger celebration is planned when NATO leaders meet in Washington from July 9 to 11.

Hundreds of staffers filled the vast air terminal-like space at the centre of NATO’s sprawling Brussels headquarters, while scores of others looked down from glassed walkways and stairways as Belgian and Dutch military bands played the NATO Hymn, the original Washington Treaty laid before them.

“I like the Washington Treaty. Not least because it is very short,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said with a smile. “Just 14 paragraphs over a few pages. Never has a single document with so few words meant so much to so many people. So much security. So much prosperity, and so much peace.”

Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billström, was taking part in the first ministerial-level meeting since his country became NATO’s 32nd ally last month. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 drove Sweden and Finland into NATO’s arms.

“NATO represents the freedom to choose,” Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said, reflecting on the way the Nordic neighbours recently joined. “Democratic nations, free people chose to join. Unlike how Russia expands its by aggression or by illegal annexation.”

President Vladimir Putin said he launched the war, in part at least, because NATO was expanding closer to Russia’s borders.

The alliance’s ranks have almost tripled from its 12 founding members, but Finland and Sweden joined in record time to shelter under NATO’s collective security guarantee.

That promise – Article 5 of the Washington Treaty – stipulates that an attack on any one of their number must be met with a united response. It’s only ever been used once, after the Al-Qaeda attacks on US soil in 2001.

In a statement, US President Joe Biden hailed NATO as “the greatest military alliance in the history of the world.”

“We must remember that the sacred commitment we make to our allies – to defend every inch of NATO territory – makes us safer too, and gives the United States a bulwark of security unrivalled by any other nation in the world.”