President Biden and fellow NATO leaders

want to

getting together

next one

will change to “this” for Sunday printing week praised their remarkable unity supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia. But serious disagreements over expanding the transatlantic alliance threaten to disrupt harmony and turn the annual summit on its head.

The cC of NATO

Oh hesie

among the members of NATO’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization it is

So

rounded

endangered by the war

has become one

seemingly endless slog. Even

Ukrainian Ukrainians p

resident, Volodymyr Zelensky

has said

a long-anticipated counter-offensive against Russian invaders does not go as well as he had hoped.

That of NATO

meeting in the Lithuanian capital

by

Vilnius will show world leaders how they can help

no member

Ukraine,

included

what kind of military aid should be provided and what a longer-term security arrangement should look like, whether or not it is included

future

alliance membership. The summit comes in the wake of an aborted mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin

by the paramilitary Wagner Group

that leaders are still analyzing.

“All eyes will be on Vilnius to see what the so-called Ukraine package will look like,” said Sean Monaghan, a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies specializing in Europe.

The US has already spent or committed $75 billion to bolster Ukraine’s military and state, and has allowed allies to send their US-produced fighter jets into battle. Biden has persuaded other European countries to posit for the war effort, including

become convincing

Germany

for the first time since World War II,

Unpleasant

borrow deadly weapons military support

to a foreigner

country

for the first time since World War II

country

.

Emergency workers say

the president

hopes that the Vilnius Summit will demonstrate its efforts to restore international partnerships damaged under the previous government.

“You will see NATO allies really recommit to the basic proposal:

Ah

s long as it takes,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s National Security

advisor advisor

, a small group of reporters told Friday. “This will be an opportunity to really refresh the unity and zeal we’ve shown all along.”

Biden wants

inevitably also be forced to fight criticism, fight a small but nasty burst of rhetoric

from some Republicans, including a few presidential candidates who

to have

reject

edit

the importance of the fight against Ukraine. They hope to awaken a lingering impatience in sections of the public who may have had enough of the costly war. But Sullivan says the administration remains confident

of that it has

bipartisan support and that of the

American USA

audience for a war it

has featured portraits

as critical to US national security and the rules of fair play in the world.

It will be a battle for sS

around participants

wants battle

make language

that would

ensure the security of Ukraine in the coming months and years, including after the end of the war. The country wants to join NATO, but that prospect is unlikely as long as the war rages.

Foreign policy analysts instead expect NATO to formulate a series of long-term security guarantees and commitments to Ukraine’s self-defense on the sidelines of the summit until a path for

from Ukraine

membership becomes clearer. Biden called it an “Israel-like” notion, what

would

to connect

S

a steady, open flow of aid so that the country can plan a long-term security strategy.

Last week, 46 foreign policy experts

included

Francis Fukuyama

and former U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski (DN.J.)

wrote an open letter in Politico Magazine calling on the alliance to use the summit to express explicit support for Kiev’s victory and the pursuit of territorial integrity along the 1991 borders, and to move towards NATO membership of Ukraine “at the earliest feasible date”.

Former US

a

Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, who was one of the signatories, said the more cautious approach taken by the government and some European allies has overshadowed “recognition of the dangers and opportunities of the moment”.

While Vilnius could be a historic summit, Herbst said he doesn’t expect the alliance to rise to the occasion due to continued reluctance to provoke a nuclear-armed Putin.

“The problem is that while the government has recognized that a Putin victory in Ukraine would be disastrous, their own shyness has held them back from pursuing robust policies that would deliver Ukraine’s victory,” he said.

Also on the agenda in Vilnius is Sweden’s ambition to become a member of NATO.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the historically neutral countries of Finland and Sweden declared their wish to join NATO. Finland was quickly admitted, but Sweden stumbled over Turkey’s objections to Ankara

has said

is a Swedish tolerance for Kurdish militants.

Admission to the alliance must be unanimous, making Turkey out of proportion

i.e

power to block a nation like Sweden. The Nordic democracy has taken several steps in hopes of appeasing Ankara, including the extradition of a Kurdish activist wanted by Turkey and a tightening of domestic terrorism laws.

“Sweden has gone as far as it can go,” said Heather Conley, president of the German Marshall Fund in Washington. Yet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to refuse

to provide

Sweden’s entry raised US hopes that the matter would be resolved before the Vilnius meeting.

Turkey’s stubbornness infuriates many US and European officials, some of whom even question the validity of Ankara’s NATO membership given Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian and anti-democratic policies.

It would be a real failure for the [NATO] If it can’t get Sweden across the goal line here, it’s a failure because it’s held back by one member: Turkey,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe and Russia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The alliance has played very nicely with Turkey so far. … But now the rubber is kind of getting on the road here, and it really raises the question of whether this is an alliance that Turkey belongs to and shares the values.”

Sullivan

repeated that repeated

The United States

is

Certainly

ty dat

Sweden wants

be admitted

sooner or later to NATO. One thing Erdogan desperately wants is the purchase of F-16 fighter jets from the US Congress, which is holding back sales due to various issues with Turkey.

Before the NATO meeting, Zelensky

the Ukrainian president,

made a quick series of stops in Bulgaria, Czech Republic

,

and Slovakia.

In Bratislava, the Slovak capital, Zelensky reiterated Kiev’s hopes for concrete steps towards Ukrainian membership in the alliance.

There is strength in NATO unity, he told reporters.

Zelensky

What

so travel

thing

Friday to Turkey

,

to meet with Erdogan. Zelensky said the delay in Swedish membership threatened the strength of the alliance.

Washington has steadily increased the number

firepower child

by

the

weapons that it gives Kiev.

Now,

Ukraine’s critical need for ammunition has prompted US officials to agree to supply the country with cluster bombs, a controversial weapon banned in many parts of the world due to a

inclination inclination

harm citizens.

US officials

know that know

they will get flak at the NATO summit for the decision, which Sullivan said was not taken lightly.

“Ukraine needs the bullets so that it is not overrun,” he said.

In their plea for more weapons, Ukrainian officials have long cited Russian superiority in artillery and heavy tanks, a critical impediment as the counter-offensive gains momentum.

and everything

additions to the nation’s arsenal.

The number of weapons is important, Mykhailo Podolyak, an important Zelensky

advisor advisor

wrote on Twitter on Friday, describing the war as a battle between lawlessness and international law. So weapons, more weapons and more weapons, including cluster munitions.

With Saturday marking the 500th day of the Russian invasion, Ukraine has made it clear that it is frustrated at the idea that the closely monitored counter-offensive,

whichthat

started last month, would bring rapid and substantial profits.

His forces are moving toward entrenched Russian forces along a

frontline frontline

extending for hundreds of miles, conquering territory mainly in small increments, with progress often measured in yards rather than miles.

On Friday, Ukraine said its troops had advanced more than half a mile near the eastern city of Bakhmut, which fell to Russia in May.

Not all battlefield activity on the part of Ukraine will translate into immediate and visible territorial gains, a military spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern command said in a recent interview with The Times in the southern city of Odessa.

There are elements of the counter-offensive, but no decisive blow, said Natalia Humeniuk, a military spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern command in Odessa.

But s

She said Ukraine was

Calm

inflicting losses on Russia that would ultimately make it difficult for its forces to defend the territory they had captured earlier in the 16-month-old invasion.

The enemy loses forces, they lose warehouses and supply points, they lose logistical routes,

they Humenuk

said.

But, she warned, not all of Ukraine’s battlefield activity will translate into immediate and visible territorial gains. That may not be what NATO members in Vilnius want to hear. King reported from Odessa, Ukraine.