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The 2026 NATO Summit opened Tuesday in Ankara, Turkey, gathering all 32 member-state leaders plus Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and South Korea’s President Lee Jae-myung. Australia, Japan, and New Zealand sent senior ministers. Gulf states directly affected by the US-Israel war on Iran — Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE — also sent representation. Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa holds a separate bilateral with Trump in Ankara outside the formal summit structure.
Russia’s message to the summit delegates: a massive overnight missile-and-drone barrage across Ukraine on July 5-6, killing at least 22 people. ISW identified it as the fourth large-scale strike against Ukraine since June 1. Ukraine’s air defense intercepted some drones but was unable to stop the ballistic missiles — the Patriot deficit exposed in previous briefs is still operational fact.
Trump’s bilateral with Zelenskyy is the summit’s most closely watched event. Ukraine’s US Ambassador told Foreign Policy ahead of the meeting that “ending the war could look different from circling discussions around a specific plan” — a deliberate softening of Kyiv’s previous insistence on full territorial restoration. Read: Zelenskyy is preparing options. Whether Trump rewards that flexibility or pockets it and demands more is unknown.
Russian forces taking even more territory in Donbas may make the question moot.
The formal summit agenda centers on translating last year’s Hague Summit pledge — 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2035, plus 1.5% on security-related spending — into actual production capacity. NATO officials are describing Ankara as a “capabilities summit,” not another promises summit. One think-tank expert noted bluntly that increased defense orders produce hardware eventually, not immediately.
The Erdogan dimension: Turkey is host, NATO member, and active economic partner with Russia. Erdogan has previously positioned himself as a potential intermediary. His hosting role in Ankara is not a neutral act of rotating hospitality.
CDM read: Russia did not try to disrupt the summit — it broadcast its displeasure clearly and went back to killing Ukrainians. The alliance’s response to date has been a bigger spending pledge, an Eastern Sentry operation in Poland, and a Defense Industry Forum starting today. Watch the Zelenskyy-Trump meeting for any signal that the ceasefire framework being tried in Iran is about to be attempted in Ukraine….
Europe is attempting to become relevant.
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