NATO summit to avoid Ukraine membership issue
NATO leaders convening for a key summit this month will deliberately avoid discussing membership for Ukraine, AFP reported on Wednesday, citing sources. The bloc's members are reportedly wary of raising the issue due to fears it could exacerbate tensions between the EU and US.
Members of the US-led military bloc are highly likely to 'steer clear of its previous strong statements that Ukraine is on course to join the alliance' when the summit takes place in The Hague in late June, the agency said.
One diplomatic source told AFP that the final declaration is expected to omit any mention of Ukrainian membership to maintain unity among member states. 'There will be nothing on that,' a NATO diplomat said. 'My expectation is we will be absolutely silent.'
US President Donald Trump has expressed firm opposition to Ukraine's bid to join NATO. In February, he suggested that Ukraine 'can forget about NATO,' adding that Kiev's bid was 'probably the reason the whole thing started,' referring to the conflict with Russia.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is still expected to be present at the summit, but any formal talks between the bloc and Kiev are unlikely, AFP said. 'It will be a PR disaster if he's not there,' another diplomat told the agency.
While NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has insisted that Ukraine remains a priority issue at the summit, AFP sources have painted a different picture. They suggested that the overwhelming emphasis will be on trying to satisfy Trump's demands that member states drastically ramp up their defense spending. It 'is the most important part and no one wants to jeopardize that,' the agency's source said.
Russia has stated that NATO membership for Ukraine is a red line and one of the key reasons for the conflict, insisting that Ukraine adopt a neutral status as a key condition for a lasting peace.
While Trump administration officials have described NATO membership as 'a bridge too far,' Kiev has refused to commit to neutrality or to refraining from hosting foreign troops on its soil, which Moscow also considers to be a red line.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Russia Today
an hour ago
- Russia Today
IAEA chief condemns Ukraine strikes on Zaporozhye power plant
Attacks on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant (ZNPP), Europe's largest facility of its kind, are 'unacceptable,' Rafael Grossi, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has stated. His remark came shortly after Russian authorities in the eponymous region reported multiple drone strikes on the ZNPP, blaming the Ukrainian military. Moscow has repeatedly accused Kiev of targeting the facility in the past. The power plant was brought under Russian control in March 2022, shortly after which the region's residents voted in a referendum to join Russia, which Ukraine has dismissed as a sham. Around the same time, the IAEA deployed a monitoring mission to the ZNPP, which has remained in-situ to date. Speaking to reporters at Khrabrovo Airport in Russia's Kaliningrad Region on Friday, Grossi insisted that 'any attack on any nuclear power plant, in particular [the] Zaporozhye [NPP], is absolutely unacceptable.' He stopped short of apportioning the blame for such incidents to either Ukraine or Russia, noting that the IAEA's mandate is purely technical in nature. Grossi argued, however, that the fact that the international watchdog is monitoring the situation and recording any attacks, is meant to act as a deterrent. He was in Kaliningrad for a meeting with the CEO of Russia's state-run nuclear corporation, Rosatom, Aleksey Likhachev, who described the talks as the 'most multifaceted and meaningful' to date, during a press conference on Friday. He emphasized the importance of IAEA's mission at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, noting how it provides an 'information window for the whole world into the real state of affairs.' This helps fight 'provocations [and] fakes.' In a statement on Thursday, the IAEA chief reported that the watchdog's team stationed at the facility had 'heard repeated rounds of gunfire that appeared to be aimed at drones reportedly attacking the site's training center, followed by the sound of multiple explosions.' Grossi stressed that 'it was the fourth time this year that the training center, located just outside the site perimeter, was reportedly targeted by unmanned aerial vehicles.' Drone attacks on the ZNPP 'must stop immediately,' he insisted, warning of 'potentially serious consequences.' Also on Thursday, a statement appeared on the ZNPP's Telegram channel, claiming the Ukrainian military had conducted multiple drone attacks on the training center located on the facility's grounds, with no casualties or significant damage reported.
Russia Today
2 hours ago
- Russia Today
Trump-Musk Big Bro bust-up: Ignore the noise, focus on the signal
Two very rich and very powerful and very big American egos have had a very public and very loud cat fight. US President Donald Trump, arguably the single most powerful politician in the world, and his now former 'buddy-in-chief' Elon Musk, certifiably the single richest oligarch on (for now) this planet, have 'torched' (Wall Street Journal) their occasionally exuberant bromance of almost a year in a 'stunning' (Bloomberg) and 'spectacular' (New York Times) finale of fiery mutual recrimination. Say what you will about oligarchic techno-capitalism, but it can be entertaining. Using their own social media platforms, Musk and Trump have gone after each other with brutal reputational attacks, griping of the 'You owe me!' – 'No, you me!' variant, and high-value threats to do each other economic and political damage. The key trigger for the blow-up was what Trump calls his 'Big Beautiful Bill,' which is currently making its way through Congress. For, Musk – despite his lucrative government contracts a deficit hawk, whose own DOGE cost-cutting effort has just frustratingly failed – the same tax bill is a 'disgusting abomination.' Musk claims that he is greatly concerned over America's exploding and unsustainable national debt. Since Trump's Republican majority in the Senate is small, Musk's open support for the bill's vocal opponents there is a real political embarrassment for the White House at least, if not even a serious threat. US sovereign debt, moreover, is a real and very serious problem with dire economic and geopolitical implications; and estimates put the costs of Trump's bill at 3.3 trillion additional debt over the next ten years: Musk has a factual point. Yet there also is the fact that Trump's Big Beautiful Bill foresees cutting subsidies for buying Musk's Tesla cars (among other EVs), amounting to an estimated loss of $1.2 billion for Tesla. It can be complicated in that place between conservative ideology, pure and simple, and the unrelenting will to milk the public for yourself and your shareholders. Musk also 'revealed' – if that is the word – that Donald Trump features on the client list of the sinister financier, pedophile, mass sex criminal, and most likely intelligence-connected elite blackmailer Jeffrey Epstein, who conveniently committed suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019. To make it count, Musk, as if returning to his former Centrist political self, suggested impeaching Trump and founding a new party to contest the great blusterer's grip on 'the 80% in the middle.' Liberal Tesla drivers: Maybe you can love your car again. Even if the share prices of its manufacturer are tanking. Trump shot back by warning Musk that his 'billions' in government contracts could melt away like the snows of yesteryear, which made Musk threaten to stop carrying US astronauts into orbit, that is, in effect – since the volatile oligarch is America's de facto monopolist – shut down space for the US. That, according to the Washington Post, constituted a 'serious threat to NASA and Pentagon programs.' Slow claps, Washington, for letting 'the Market' handle national security. All in all, quite a reality show: noisy, no holds barred, and pretty indecorous. A dignified display of manly self-control and mature gravity at the empire's top this was not. But, then again, it's the US late-imperial 'elite,' so the bar of the truly sensational is really high – or low, depending on how you look at it. The whole battle-not-so-royal may or may not blow over. Both Trump and Musk clearly have much to lose from a prolonged war against each other, financially and politically, and both are not only card-carrying egomaniacs but also ruthless, selfish pragmatists. There are already signals that Musk, for one, may want to wind down the confrontation again: he has relented regarding the astronauts and made some semi-conciliatory noises. Between the president's growing reputation for 'TACO' (Trump always chickens out) and Musk's proven ability to knuckle under when the price is right (in Brazil and toward Israel-while-committing-genocide, for instance), the two would-be alpha males might still find a way to share. Yet things will never be as before. For one thing, by losing their cool, Musk and Trump have ended up showing each other three things that neither of them will forget: Just how volatile they both are (I know: surprise, surprise…); that Elon is no sacrosanct exception for Donald and Donald isn't one for Elon either: everyone can always end up on the menu; and, finally, that both can think quickly – really as if they had been doing so for quite a while already – of the nastiest way to hurt the other. If Musk and Trump do make up, think of it as a movie star marriage sticking together after both spouses have badly, publicly cheated and also tried to ruin each other, financially, career-wise, and reputationally. And now let's take a step back. For, ultimately, the Big Bro Bust-Up is most interesting if we look at it as if we were historians a few hundred years from now in the future: What does this quarrel tell us more generally about America at this stage? First of all, it simply confirms what we all know already: The US is not a democracy by any stretch of the (reasonable) imagination but an oligarchy and plutocracy. Votes count much less than money because money produces the votes. Musk has been commendably explicit about his belief that it was his massive financial support that made Trump win; and one of Trump's worries in the whole rumble is that Musk might not only withdraw future funds from his camp – already promised but not yet paid out – but also invest them elsewhere. Second, as of now at least, the American oligarchy/plutocracy is not under pressure 'from below.' Objectively – to use a term long beloved by Marxists – Americans have every reason to rebel and shake off both Trump and Musk and then some. But, sadly, tension and conflict are generated inside the elite, not by 'the masses.' And third, the US elite is and remains absolutely, ruthlessly amoral and immoral, indeed quite evil: Here is a major falling out between the biggest oligarch and the president, and it's about taxes, the deficit, profits, ego, and personal advantages. Not about, for instance, the fact that the US has, according to Israel, by now delivered 90,000 tons of arms and ammunitions to the Israeli apartheid state while the latter has been committing the Gaza genocide. Indeed, Musk has never withdrawn his support for Israel, while Trump has reached the same level of complicit depravity as his predecessor Joe Biden. America: The world sees your priorities. And it won't forget.
Russia Today
4 hours ago
- Russia Today
Trump and Musk go from hugs to insults
US President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who just months ago celebrated the Republican candidate's election victory together, have exchanged insults, accusations and threats. Their relationship has followed a familiar trajectory: over the years, many of Trump's associates have gone from working closely with him to a public falling out. This is how the tech entrepreneur threw his wealth and clout behind Trump's re-election campaign, took a proverbial chainsaw to perceived excesses in government spending, and later turned against the president and his signature spending bill. Musk first unequivocally endorsed Trump for a second term in July 2024, after a shooter almost killed the GOP contender during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. In the months leading up to the election, he spent an estimated $200 million securing the candidate's victory through a political action committee he created for the purpose. But their relationship stretches back years. During Trump's first term in office, which began in January 2017, Musk sat on a White House business advisory group, but quit later that year after the administration decided to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. In 2022, Musk said it was time for Trump 'to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset' and blamed the Democrats for targeting him, arguing they had pushed him to seek office in order to insulate himself from legal problems. The remark reflected the tech entrepreneur's broader dissatisfaction with what he called 'the party of division & hate.' That same year, Musk purchased Twitter, a social media platform that at the time was the de facto public square for US national politics, whose management he accused of stifling conservative voices. The new owner reinstated Trump's account, which had been suspended in January 2021 for allegedly posing a risk of incitement of violence in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot, and otherwise changed moderation rules. Critics claim Musk saturated the platform with 'misinformation' and hate speech. Musk also blasted then-President Joe Biden's immigration policy, which he said amounted to keeping the southern border 'open' and decried failing to repatriate illegals as a ploy to increase the Democratic Party electoral base. Trump made the promise of mass deportation of such immigrants a key part of his campaign. In January 2025, Musk was appointed to lead the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the Trump administration, with a mandate to review federal spending and cut exuberant or suspicious projects. Critics called Musk's approach reckless and damaging, while Trump declared DOGE a 'very big success' and an example of his administration's no-nonsense treatment of red tape. In February, Musk gladly brandished a chainsaw at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which had been given to him by Argentina's President Javier Milei, a similarly-minded politician, as a symbol of the efforts. Musk got embroiled in several controversies while working for the government. Claims that he threw a Nazi salute during an inauguration event were largely written off by the president's supporters as partisan attacks. Musk's criticisms of senior officials in countries which were traditional US allies, including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Germany's now-former Chancellor Olaf Scholz, were downplayed by officials. Behind closed doors, however, he reportedly clashed with senior cabinet members. In March, the New York Times claimed that the DOGE chief had criticized US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for not firing enough staff members in their departments. Trump dismissed the report as 'fake news.' Nevertheless, signs of the growing rift mounted. Days before his seemingly amicable departure from DOGE, Musk told CBS News he was 'disappointed' with the 'big, beautiful bill' – the centerpiece of Trump's second term agenda currently pending approval by the Senate. This week, Musk derided the spending proposal as a 'massive, outrageous, pork-filled … disgusting abomination.' The Trump-Musk 'bromance' seemingly imploded over several hours on Thursday, after the president accused the Tesla CEO of going after the legislation out of personal spite. 'He only developed the problem when he found out we're gonna have to cut the EV mandate,' Trump told journalists in the Oval Office. The billionaire pushed back on X, accusing Trump of lying about the bill and lacking gratitude for his backing on the campaign trail, which Musk asserted secured the victory. Trump doubled down on his Truth Social platform, declaring that Musk 'just went CRAZY' and threatening to withdraw government contracts from his businesses. In response, Musk accused Trump in an X post on Thursday of covering up his alleged complicity in the sex offences of late financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, suggesting the president could be impeached for it. He also threatened to jeopardize NASA's manned space program by decommissioning the Dracon family of spacecraft operated by his company SpaceX. Musk has since indicated that he would be taking a couple of days to cool off, while White House insiders reportedly suggested a possible truce was being arranged. Some Democratic officials have suggested that Musk could switch sides, while others expressed a sense of satisfaction at his downfall. Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez claimed 'these two huge egos were not longed for being together in this world as friends,' and the breakup was long overdue.
