New weapons for Kiev, but…: Putin is the secret winner of the NATO summit in Vilnius

And a gift to Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin (70). He is the undeserved winner of Vilnius. Because he is now sure that as long as he does not break off his attack on Ukraine, NATO will keep its doors closed to Zelenskiy and his people. As long as one Russian soldier is up to mischief in Crimea or a single Russian tank hurtles through the Donbass, Kiev’s dream of NATO membership will remain just that: a dream.

Understandably, the Ukrainian delegation was furious, as Blick remarked on the spot in Vilnius. But it is also understandable that behind closed doors the Americans were annoyed by the supposedly ungrateful Ukrainians. In the end, the military superpower Zelenskiy promised not only a new military aid package, but also tangible security guarantees. In other words, more and more modern weapons, more training, more intelligence information.

Now NATO has its own inland sea

However, in terms of “guarantees”, Ukraine is a burned child. In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the US and Russia, among others, gave the country similar security guarantees and promised never to attack Ukrainian territory. In return, Ukraine gave up its massive nuclear arsenal. Nearly 30 years later, Kiev deeply regrets having believed the nonsense of security guarantees.

Despite all the frustration, we should not forget the fine print passed at the two-day summit in the Lithuanian capital. NATO has greatly simplified the procedure for Ukraine’s future accession – whenever that happens. To this end, she has set up a new Ukraine Council: a discussion forum in which the most powerful military alliance in the world wants to consult on an equal footing with Kiev. A “strong package”, said NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg (64).

The summit was particularly strong for the Swedes, who have now also received the green light from Turkey to join NATO. The Baltic Sea thus effectively becomes the backwaters of the Defense Alliance. Bad news for the encircled Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

New secret NATO plans

The 32nd official meeting since its inception in 1949 was particularly encouraging for NATO itself. In Vilnius, the 31 members performed together. No fighting, no division, no disagreement. And also an agreement on the new defense plans with which NATO wants to prepare for a possible war with Russia and new terrorist threats.

Since the end of the Cold War, the alliance had refrained from such concrete plans. Now you have it again, thanks to the tireless work of US General Chris Cavoli (59), who wrote the approximately 4,000-page orders.

300,000 soldiers – not just during office hours

What exactly is in it is a secret. One thing is clear: NATO will have 300,000 troops on standby in the near future. Each member state is allocated a section of NATO’s external border to guard and, if necessary, defend. To pay for all this, the NATO countries once again promised to spend at least two percent of their gross domestic product on the military in the future. In comparison, Switzerland spent 0.76 percent of GDP on the military last year.

So nice conversations in peaceful Vilnius. With all the euphoria, you would almost forget that a bloody territorial war was raging not far from here. It is only thanks to Kiev’s maximum commitment that the NATO states have time for their talks. It is only thanks to the Ukrainian warriors that Putin is not so long at the Polish and Baltic border. Ukraine does not pay for this as a percentage of its GDP, but in mostly young people’s lives. Every day.