NATO summit in Ukraine’s favour: how Zelenskyy won Trump over and made Orbán back down

Life in The Hague is getting back to normal. The NATO leaders – including the star of the summit, US President Donald Trump – have left the city.

The main outcome of this summit was a declaration consisting of just five points, but centered around the decision on a sharp increase in defence spending by European countries and Canada. All of this was in line with expectations voiced in the media and likely came as a surprise to no one.

However, the fact that this decision turned out to be favourable to Ukraine did surprise even some major global media outlets.

How did this happen?

After all, this was despite Trump having asserted multiple times that he did not see a place for Ukraine in NATO.

And he wasn't alone. Even harsher remarks had been heard from the pro-Russian leader of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, who claimed that halting NATO’s support for Ukraine was his political mission. He had every right to veto it or, at the very least, to push for the removal of pro-Ukrainian provisions from the declaration. But that didn’t happen, and the summit in The Hague brought no negative consequences for Ukraine.

Moreover, the Alliance has now begun to openly emphasise that Ukraine is still on the path towards membership. Statements made by Secretary General Mark Rutte suggest that the US’s stance on the matter is shifting to a supportive position towards Ukraine.

The American position was the magic wand that enabled the Alliance to overcome anti-Ukrainian stances within NATO.

A happy summit for Donald Trump

In September 2014, the UK hosted a long-planned NATO summit in Wales. By coincidence, it took place at a historic moment. The Alliance leaders met shortly after the outbreak of open warfare in Donbas, at a time when Western intelligence agencies had unanimously concluded that it wasn’t just "rebels" fighting the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but regular Russian troops.

Back then, however, the Allied states were not ready to take the new reality seriously.

Their much-vaunted promise to increase defence spending to 2% of GDP remained largely on paper. Judging by deeds rather than words, only the nations on NATO’s eastern flank fully grasped the seriousness of the Russian threat.

One point about the Wales summit now comes to mind.

The summit took place at a luxury golf resort near the city of Newport. Eleven years on, journalists and experts in The Hague joked that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to hold the summit at a golf club again – to please the current US president, who is known to be an avid golfer. In fact, there were some golf-related elements at The Hague: golf buggies were used to take guests to the gated area where the summit was held.

But joking aside…

The task of "buttering Trump up" was a central one for the summit hosts. 

They didn’t even try to hide it.

An overnight stay at the royal palace. Personal attention and care from the Dutch royal family. A programme tailored to the US president’s every whim. Flattery so excessive it took one’s breath away, bordering on self-humiliation in the view of some Western media outlets. All of this was served up in The Hague.

Trump made sure everyone noticed. Without seeking permission, he published a personal and highly complementary letter he had received from NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte – to which Rutte responded with still more lavish praise for the American leader, even jokingly calling him "Daddy".

While some Western journalists were left stunned by this, there was no doubt in political circles about the appropriateness of the Secretary General’s actions.

"If you want to know the mood among the leaders, it's pretty much what you read in Mark Rutte’s message," one summit attendee told European Pravda off the record.

And all these efforts paid off.

Trump enjoyed the summit – a fact that was especially evident at the final press conference.

The meeting between the American leader and his Ukrainian counterpart went smoothly, too. In a nod to Trump’s sartorial preferences, Volodymyr Zelenskyy swapped his usual khaki sweater for a black outfit that resembled a suit.

But the key element of Ukraine’s success had been secured before the summit even began.

Ukraine is crucial, Russia is a threat to NATO

European Pravda has explained the expected decisions in detail. They aligned closely with what we had reported earlier based on our sources. However, now that the declaration is public and officially endorsed, it is worth revisiting its details.

As anticipated, this year’s summit declaration is different to any from past decades. NATO has broken from its tradition of adopting lengthy documents that express a collective stance on dozens of global issues, choosing instead to focus on a single topic – the issue of defence spending by NATO member states.

This is an internal matter that concerns only current members of the Alliance, not its partner states.

Yet the declaration mentions two non-NATO countries: Russia and Ukraine.

Earlier, during the drafting phase, the United States had pushed for the inclusion of a reference to China, which Washington considers its main strategic rival.

European Pravda does not know why the China issue was ultimately not included. It's possible that the Allies concluded that citing China as a reason for increased defence spending would look like the declaration of an arms race.

There were no such reservations when it came to Russia.

In fact, European NATO members had a rock-solid argument: if we are increasing our defence budgets, we cannot avoid stating plainly that the reason is the Russian threat – the danger of a Russian attack on NATO unless the Alliance demonstrates its readiness to repel such aggression.

This gave rise to the wording that made it into the final version: all NATO members, including the US, agreed that Russia poses a "long-term threat to Euro-Atlantic security".

Technically, NATO had used this phrasing before, but it was crucial for it to be reaffirmed by the new US administration.

The second non-NATO country mentioned is Ukraine.

Back in May, when the Allies were just beginning their discussions on the summit’s final declaration, the US were insistent that Ukraine should not be mentioned, arguing that the summit did not directly concern it. However, in the course of just over a month, the American position evolved significantly. As a result, the final declaration includes a commitment from NATO countries to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces as part of their defence spending – and the US has agreed to this as well.

Allies advocating for Ukraine’s interests had a formal argument for why Ukraine should be mentioned in what was essentially an "internal" defence spending decision. Many NATO countries were interested in sending some of the weapons they would acquire under the 5% defence budget rule to Ukraine’s military.

And it wasn’t just Ukraine’s traditional Eastern European advocates who wanted to do this. Western nations like Canada, Belgium, and especially Luxembourg also saw the benefit. For these countries, a key challenge in increasing their defence budgets is that their armed forces are too small to absorb a significant budget hike efficiently. Expanding their militaries is a complex task that also drains talent from their economies.

Spending on Ukraine’s Armed Forces is simply more cost-effective.

Moreover, the Ukrainian military contributes to overall European – and thus their own – security.

This gave rise to the final wording of the declaration: "We reaffirm our shared commitment to rapidly expand transatlantic defence industrial cooperation and to harness emerging technology and the spirit of innovation to advance our collective security. We will work to eliminate defence trade barriers among Allies and will leverage our partnerships to promote defence industrial cooperation."

What about Ukraine’s NATO membership?

Back when NATO had decided to stick to a short, budget-focused declaration, European Pravda explained that this was actually the most acceptable option for Ukraine. The fact that the declaration makes no mention of Ukraine’s movement towards NATO membership is not a problem – it’s actually an advantage. It means that all the legal and political commitments regarding Ukraine’s future membership remain intact.

Given that earlier this year Trump and members of his team were openly suggesting that they were ready to give the Kremlin the "gift" of Ukraine’s non-accession to NATO, the strategy of "not raising the issue and waiting it out" seemed the most advantageous for Ukraine.

But over the past month, something has changed in the US.

The White House has not become an open supporter of Ukraine’s rapid accession to NATO, but the negative rhetoric has stopped.

More importantly: NATO has received the green light to give Ukraine hope for membership.

Mark Rutte’s statements about Ukraine moving towards NATO membership have become more frequent and concrete. He has begun talking about it not just in response to questions, but on his own initiative.

Shortly before the summit, the Secretary General went even further.

On Monday, Mark Rutte made a statement in which he said that following the summit with Trump, Ukraine would continue its "irreversible path towards NATO membership". Even before the leaders had met and delivered their speeches, Rutte was publicly announcing that they would support the existing policy towards Ukraine, even if it was not explicitly mentioned in the summit’s declaration.

Then, on Tuesday, Rutte took another step forward when he declared that the leaders saw their decision as building a "bridge" towards Ukraine’s membership.

It’s important to understand how NATO coordinates political positions. It would be impossible for the Secretary General to make such statements, let alone repeat them several times, unless they had been agreed upon with the United States. The lack of any comment or objection from Trump and his team confirms that the US position is indeed shifting.

This explains why other Alliance members did not veto the issue of Ukraine either.

This applies first and foremost to Hungary.

The Orbán government is the main public opponent of Ukraine joining both the European Union and NATO. This is a cornerstone of Orbán’s political platform, with an eye to the upcoming Hungarian elections, and he makes such statements frequently.

Even on the day of the summit, Orbán had declared that blocking Ukraine’s path to NATO membership was a personal goal of his. His foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, issued a separate statement claiming that Ukraine’s security is no longer linked to NATO’s security, and rejoicing in the fact that for the first time, the summit would not, he said, be focusing on supporting Ukraine.

But just a few hours later, the outcome was the exact opposite of what Szijjártó and Orbán had claimed.

So what forced the Hungarian government to agree to a decision that contradicts its core political position? This question is essentially a rhetorical one, because the answer is obvious. The influence on Hungary is named "Trump".

It has long been well known that Hungary’s foreign policy aligns with the views of the United States, especially its current leadership.

Right now, Orbán’s political standing at home has weakened, and his need for Trump’s support has increased accordingly. As The Hague summit clearly demonstrated, Orbán is not ready to go against the White House, even on issues he himself had declared were critically important, such as NATO membership for Ukraine.

Sergiy Sydorenko

Editor, European Pravda, from The Hague