Ukraine at the NATO Summit

The World Unpacked

NATO’s 75th anniversary summit is coming up in Washington DC next month. With the war in Ukraine ongoing, Kyiv has sought to join NATO for a while now. But the alliance has been reluctant to grant official membership, which led to a tense summit last year. So, this time around, the US government and its Allies have been working hard to identify summit deliverables beyond Ukraine’s NATO membership. Still, it’s hard to picture a summit where Ukraine’s future will not be the number one agenda item.

This week on the show, Senior Fellow Eric Ciaramella joins Sophia to discuss the upcoming 75th anniversary NATO summit—and what it might mean for Ukraine. They unpack how NATO allies are thinking about their support to Ukraine two years into the war, what the summit may be able to deliver for Ukraine short of official NATO membership, and what we should look out for in the months following the meeting.

1. Eric Ciaramella, "Envisioning a Long-Term Security Arrangement for Ukraine," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 8, 2023.
2. Nicole Gonik and Eric Ciaramella, "War and Peace: Ukraine's Impossible Choices," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 11, 2024.
3. Mary E. Sarrotte, Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021).