Wholestory

Meeting in Paris, the co-chairs of the 'Coalition of the Willing' declared the Multinational Force for Ukraine (MNF-U) ready to operate — to regenerate Ukrainian forces and provide reassurance on land, in the air and at sea, at Ukraine's request, once a credible cessation of hostilities is in place, with demonstration exercises planned for the coming months. The statement reaffirmed the January 2026 Paris Declaration's commitment to politically and legally binding security guarantees that activate only once a ceasefire enters into force, alongside bilateral agreements — leaving the guarantee instrument itself inactive while the war continues. The coalition also welcomed the new Anti-Ballistic Missile Coalition and interceptor-production licenses for Ukraine, and committed to more systematic interdiction of Russia's shadow tanker fleet and to immobilising Russian assets until Russia compensates Ukraine.

At the 2023 Vilnius Summit, NATO Allies agreed to remove the requirement for a Membership Action Plan (MAP) for Ukraine, streamlining its future accession process. They also inaugurated the NATO-Ukraine Council, elevating the relationship to a joint body for permanent consultation where Ukraine sits as an equal.

The United Kingdom became the first G7 country to sign a long-term bilateral security agreement with Ukraine, fulfilling the commitments made in the G7 Joint Declaration at the Vilnius Summit. The 10-year pact includes robust military assistance, intelligence sharing, and defense industry cooperation.

Germany and France signed 10-year bilateral security agreements with Ukraine. These pacts cement long-term military, financial, and humanitarian support, and establish formal mechanisms for rapid consultation in the event of renewed Russian aggression.

The United States and Ukraine signed a landmark 10-year bilateral security agreement on the sidelines of the G7 summit. The agreement serves as a 'bridge' to Ukraine's eventual NATO membership, aligning Ukraine's armed forces more closely with NATO standards and promising sustained US defense support.

The NATO Washington Summit concluded with a historic declaration describing Ukraine's path to full NATO membership as 'irreversible'. Allies pledged a minimum of €40 billion in military assistance for 2025 and established the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training, and Education Centre (JATEC) in Poland. Allies ultimately exceeded the pledge, providing over €50 billion in 2024, nearly 60% from European Allies and Canada. This declaration remains the high-water mark of membership language: neither the 2025 Hague nor the 2026 Ankara summit declaration repeats the 'irreversible path' phrase, though NATO's institutional pages still carry it.

NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), decided at the Washington Summit, was up and running by December 2024. Headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, under a three-star general reporting to SACEUR, with around 300 personnel and three logistical hubs in the Alliance's east, it moved coordination of security assistance and training from ad-hoc national efforts onto NATO footing while operating only on Allied territory.

The NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre (JATEC) officially opened in Bydgoszcz, Poland — the first organisation jointly staffed and run by NATO and Ukraine, embedded in the NATO Command Structure under Allied Command Transformation. Endorsed at the 2024 Washington Summit, it channels Ukrainian battlefield lessons directly into Alliance training and doctrine.

The Hague Summit Declaration committed Allies to invest 5% of GDP on defence by 2035 (at least 3.5% core defence plus up to 1.5% broader security spending) and agreed that direct contributions to Ukraine's defence and defence industry count toward that spending. It was also the first summit declaration since Russia's full-scale invasion with no reference to Ukraine's NATO membership: the 'irreversible path' language of Washington 2024 was absent, mentioned only on NATO's institutional pages. The declaration confirmed the next summits for Türkiye (2026) and Albania.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and US President Donald Trump agreed the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) at the White House — a new mechanism in which European Allies and Canada fund packages of roughly $500 million of US-sourced equipment matched to Ukraine's operational priorities, delivered via NSATU. The Netherlands funded the first package in full in August 2025. By December 2025 pledges passed $4 billion — about $1 billion a month — and by mid-2026 over two-thirds of Allies plus partners Australia and New Zealand had funded more than $6 billion. The mechanism marks the structural shift of the US from donor to arms seller in Ukraine's supply chain.

Days after the Trump-Putin Alaska summit, NATO Secretary General Rutte joined Starmer, Macron, Meloni, Merz, Stubb and von der Leyen in accompanying Zelenskyy to White House talks — a show of collective presence the BBC called without precedent in the modern era. US envoy Steve Witkoff said Putin had conceded at the Alaska summit that the US could offer Ukraine 'Article 5-like protection' outside NATO — the first airing of the guarantee model that would anchor later peace-deal drafts. Zelenskyy, invoking the failed 1994 Budapest assurances, insisted any guarantees must actually work.

Ukraine's Ministry of Defence confirmed 28 bilateral security cooperation agreements — 27 countries plus the EU — all signed by President Zelenskyy under the framework of the 2023 G7 Joint Declaration. Each runs 10 years and stipulates urgent consultations in the event of renewed Russian aggression, support for Ukraine's EU and NATO path, and rebuilding of its defence industry. The ministry notes the most critical provisions are not public.

After Berlin talks with European officials and a Ukrainian delegation, the US said it was ready to give Ukraine 'very strong' security guarantees modelled on NATO's Article 5 to safeguard an eventual ceasefire — a package officials called the 'platinum standard', which Washington said it was willing to submit to the US Senate for ratification. A day earlier Zelenskyy had signalled for the first time that, as a 'compromise', he would give up Ukraine's NATO ambitions in exchange for strong guarantees. German Chancellor Merz called a ceasefire conceivable 'for the first time'. The exchange crystallised the substitution at the heart of the peace framework: binding bilateral guarantees in place of membership.

At a Paris summit of the 35-country 'coalition of the willing' (27 heads of state or government attending, and the first joined by US envoys), Macron, Zelenskyy and Starmer signed a declaration of intent for a multinational force on Ukrainian territory in the event of a ceasefire. France said it could contribute 'several thousand' troops; Starmer promised UK-French military hubs across Ukraine; Germany's Merz said German forces would monitor from a neighbouring country only. The US backed the guarantees and agreed to lead a ceasefire monitoring mechanism — expected to rely on drones, sensors and satellites rather than US troops — with a US-Ukraine coordination cell established in Paris.

The NATO-Ukraine Council met in Kyiv — the first meeting of the body on Ukrainian soil since its creation at the 2023 Vilnius Summit. Secretary General Mark Rutte, Military Committee Chair Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone and the North Atlantic Council ambassadors joined President Zelenskyy for what NATO called a historic session.

NATO's Ankara Summit Declaration pledged €70 billion in military equipment, assistance and training for Ukraine for 2026, with commitments to sustain at least equivalent levels in 2027 — while acknowledging that European Allies and Canada 'now finance the vast majority' of security assistance (CFR, citing Kyiv Independent, reports the pledge itself excludes the United States). Trump announced Ukraine would be licensed to produce Patriot interceptors, a permission previously granted only to Japan and Germany. Allies welcomed the EU's multi-year Ukraine Support Loan. For the second consecutive summit, the declaration contained no reference to Ukraine's membership path — the 'irreversible path' of 2024 now survives only on NATO's institutional pages.

In the most consequential NATO enlargement in decades — a direct strategic backfire of Russia's invasion — Finland and Sweden abandoned their decades-long policies of military non-alignment and joined the Alliance. Finland acceded as the 31st member on April 4, 2023; Sweden, after nearly a year of Turkish and then Hungarian ratification delays, joined as the 32nd member on March 7, 2024. Their accession roughly doubled NATO's land border with Russia and turned the Baltic Sea into a largely NATO-encircled body of water.