Nato leaders are expected to make a one-year, €40bn pledge of support for Ukraine this week, as the alliance’s most important members are engulfed in domestic political turmoil that limits their capacity to commit more long-term resources to Ukraine in its defence against Russia.
The summit starting on Tuesday in Washington comes on the heels of a snap election in France, where talks over a new government are expected to be complex and where the Ukraine-sceptic far right has become a major political force, and as Joe Biden faces pressure to quit the US presidential race against Donald Trump. In Germany, the coalition of Chancellor Olaf Scholz remains unpopular and fragile.
These tectonic shifts have undermined Nato’s efforts to cast the alliance’s 75th anniversary as a show of unwavering support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Instead the event risks shining a light on the fragility of continued western aid for Kyiv.
