VILNIUS: NATO leaders will grapple with Ukraine’s membership ambitions at their summit Tuesday, their determination to face down Russia boosted by a breakthrough in Sweden’s bid to join the alliance.
German Patriot missile systems and French fighter jets were guarding the skies as NATO leaders gathered in Lithuania, on NATO’s eastern flank and a land once occupied by Moscow.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to head to Vilnius for the two-day summit to make the case that Kyiv has earned the right to join when the Kremlin’s invasion ends.
“Ukraine deserves to be in the alliance. Not now, because now there’s war, but we need a clear signal,” Zelensky said in Kyiv on the eve of the summit.
The Western military alliance is set to offer its full-throated backing for Kyiv’s quest for victory, but its 31 nations are divided over how far to go on letting Ukraine join their ranks.
While Ukraine’s neighbors have pushed for an explicit timetable, heavyweights the United States and Germany are reluctant to go beyond an earlier vow that it will become a member one day.
US President Joe Biden, who will meet with Zelensky on Wednesday, has said there is no agreement to offer Kyiv membership while its war with Russia rages, as this would drag NATO directly into the conflict.
“I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now,” Biden told CNN.
But the alliance is offering Kyiv a branch by simplifying its eventual accession bid and dropping a requirement that it complete a formal road map of reforms.
The alliance will draw up a path of reforms that Ukraine will need to undertake in order to eventually join, but without giving a “timetable”, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday.
As Ukraine wages a punishing counter-offensive, dominant powers the United States, Britain, France and Germany have been negotiating long-term commitments on weapons supplies with Kyiv.
These fall far short of Zelensky’s desire to be under NATO’s collective defense umbrella, but could reassure him that his nation can keep on fighting.
Drawing up something similar to the US arrangement with Israel — which sees Washington sending $3.8 billion of weapons each year for a decade — is one possibility.
Early Tuesday Ukrainian officials said Russia had targeted Kyiv and the western port city of Odesa in a overnight drone attack. Drone wreckage had been located in the Kyiv region and some windows and outbuildings had been damaged, the interior ministry said, adding there was no immediate information on casualties.
The biggest war in Europe since World War II has propelled NATO into the most sweeping overhaul of its defenses since the end of the Cold War.
Alliance leaders should sign off on new regional plans to protect against any potential Russian attack and agree to bolster defense spending targets.
But letting Ukraine in remains a step too far for some for now.
Diplomats have been wrangling up to the wire over the exact wording final communique as they seek to convince Ukraine it is moving forward.
In 2008, NATO left Ukraine in a grey zone by vowing it will become a member but failing to back that up with any concrete progress.
Kyiv’s push to join the Western bloc enraged Putin and was used as a pretext by the Kremlin leader to justify his war.
But more than 500 days into the conflict, Putin is facing a greater NATO presence lined up against Russia.
After hours of talks, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday ended months of deadlock by agreeing to forward Sweden’s application for NATO membership to his parliament for approval.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg hailed a “historic day” that should help clear the way for Sweden to become the second new member since Finland joined in April.
Turkiye has been holding up Sweden’s application to join the Atlantic alliance, accusing Stockholm of harboring Kurdish activists Ankara regards as terrorists.
Erdogan upped the stakes further, demanding that the European Union revive Turkiye’s stalled EU membership bid as a precondition for Sweden joining NATO.
In a joint statement Stockholm said it will now “actively support” efforts to reinvigorate Turkiye’s long-stalled accession bid for the EU.
Hungary is also yet to approve it, although Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has vowed it will not be the last to make the step, implying it will move soon.
NATO wrestles with Ukraine bid at summit on Russia’s doorstep
https://arab.news/2vykh
NATO wrestles with Ukraine bid at summit on Russia’s doorstep
- Ukrainian President is expected to head to Vilnius for the summit to make the case that Kyiv has earned the right to join when the Kremlin’s invasion ends
Rising energy prices from the Iran war could help Russia pay for fighting in Ukraine
- Prices for Russia’s oil exports have risen from under $40 per barrel as recently as December to about $62 per barrel
- The halt in production of ship-borne liquefied natural gas, or LNG, by major supplier Qatar will sharply increase global competition for available cargoes — including those from Russia
FRANKFURT: The Iran war’s disruption of Middle East oil and gas supplies and soaring prices are strengthening Russia’s ability to profit from its energy exports, a pillar of the Kremlin’s budget and a key to paying for its own war in Ukraine.
Prices for Russia’s oil exports have risen from under $40 per barrel as recently as December to about $62 per barrel — first on fears of war and then due to interruption of almost all tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for some 20 percent of the world’s oil consumption.
Russian oil still trades at a considerable discount to international benchmark Brent crude, which has risen above $82 from the closing price of $72.87 on Friday, the eve of the attack on Iran by the US and Israel. However, Russian crude is now above the benchmark of $59 per barrel that was assumed in the Russian Finance Ministry’s budget plan for 2026. Oil and gas tax revenues account for up to 30 percent of the Russian federal budget.
Additionally, the halt in production of ship-borne liquefied natural gas, or LNG, by major supplier Qatar will sharply increase global competition for available cargoes — including those from Russia.
A change in fortunes
Russia had seen state oil and gas revenue fall to a four-year low of 393 billion rubles ($5 billion) in January and the budget shortfall of 1.7 trillion rubles ($21.8 billion) for that month was the biggest on record, according to Finance Ministry figures.
The lower revenue was due to weaker global prices and to deep discounts fueled by US and European Union hindrance of Russia’s “shadow fleet” of tankers with obscure ownership used sell oil to its biggest customers, China and India, in defiance of a Western-imposed price cap and sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft.
Economic growth has stagnated as massive military spending has leveled off. President Vladimir Putin has resorted to tax increases and increased borrowing from compliant domestic banks to keep state finances on an even keel in the fifth year of the war.
“Russia is a big winner from the war-related energy turmoil,” said Simone Tagliapietra, energy expert at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels. “Higher oil prices mean higher revenues for the government and therefore stronger capability to finance the war in Ukraine.”
Amena Bakr, head of Middle East and OPEC+ insights at data and analytics firm Kpler, writes: “With Middle East barrels facing logistical disruption, both India and China face strong incentives to deepen reliance on Russian supply.”
Additionally, the price of future delivery of natural gas has skyrocketed in Europe, raising questions about EU plans to put an end to imports of Russian LNG by 2027 — reviving bad memories of a 2022 energy crunch after Moscow cut off most supplies of pipeline gas due to the war.
Length of strait’s closure is the key factor
Much depends on how long the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to most ship traffic, said Alexandra Prokopenko, an expert on the Russian economy at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.
A quick exit from the conflict would return Brent prices to roughly $65 per barrel and “a short-lived spike would not fundamentally change” Russia’s budget picture, she said. A middle scenario in which some shipping resumes and oil stabilizes at around $80 per barrel would give Russia “some fiscal relief,” depending on how long the higher prices last.
A long-term closure with Iranian strikes damaging refineries and pipelines could send oil to $108 per barrel, accelerate inflation and push Europe to the edge of recession. “This scenario would bring the largest windfall to Russia,” she said.
Even several weeks of interruption in Gulf LNG could lead to calls in Europe to suspend plans to ban new Russian supply contracts after April 25, said Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro-Advisory Ltd. consultancy.
“The EU is under even more pressure to work with the US to find a solution to the Ukraine conflict and, very likely, to consider easing the plan for a total block for Russian oil and gas imports,” he said. “Countries such as Hungary and Slovakia and those who have been big buyers of Russian LNG, will press for that review.”
In any case “the Russian federal budget will have a much better result in March,” Weafer said, due to lower discounts on Russian oil and “because there are eager buyers of Russian oil and oil products.”
Putin says European leaders have only themselves to blame
Putin said European governments were to blame for their energy predicament.
“What is happening today on the European markets, is, of course, above all the result of the mistaken policies of European governments in the energy sphere,” Putin said Wednesday on state TV.
He said that “maybe it would be more beneficial for us to halt (gas) supplies now to the European market, and leave for the markets that are opening and get established there,” adding that “it’s not a decision, but in this case what’s called ‘thinking out loud.’”
Putin said he would have the government to look into the issue.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Wednesday that Russian oil was “in demand” and that Russia was ready to increase supplies to China and India, the Tass news agency reported.
The head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, took a dig at European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, writing on X that “surely the wise Ursula and Kaja have a backup LNG plan. Or maybe not.”
Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Spain have continued to import around 2 billion cubic meters of Russian LNG per month, and on top of that Hungary imports 2 billion cubic meters a month through the Turkstream pipeline across the Black Sea, Tagliapietra said. That would amount to 45 billion cubic meters in 2026, 15 percent of total gas demand for this year.
It’s “not easy to replace this in case the LNG market gets tighter with continued shutdowns in Qatar,” he said.
