American President Biden gives a strong speech supporting NATO and the Ukraine getting into NATO after the current conflect with Russia….Here’s what to know:
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on Wednesday tempered the expectation that his expression of support this week for Sweden joining NATO meant that he would swiftly push the approval through the Turkish parliament.
In his first public comments on the issue since NATO announced his support for the proposal on Monday, Mr. Erdogan said that the final decision rested with the parliament and that Sweden needed to take more steps to win parliamentary support, without giving specifics. He also said parliament would not take up the matter until October, even though it is in session until July 27.
Mr. Erdogan’s remarks, hinting that Sweden’s accession may not be a done deal, were bound to disappoint many of his NATO allies, who had hoped that Mr. Erdogan’s use of the issue to win concessions for Turkey over the past year had finally come to an end. Mr. Erdogan also said that Sweden needed to continue working to address Turkey’s security concerns, suggesting that he was not yet ready to give up his leverage.
“The parliament is not in session for the next two months,” Mr. Erdogan told reporters in Vilnius, Lithuania, near the end of the annual NATO summit. “But our target is to finalize this matter as swiftly as possible.”….
Promises to the Ukraine from the G-7 Nations….
The statement was an effort by the seven countries — only one of which, Japan, is not a member of NATO — to show their resolve and to encourage other countries to follow their example in giving longer-term security commitments and aid to Ukraine.
Here are the key points of their statement:
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The G7 pledged to continue to support Ukraine’s right to self-defense by providing military equipment and weapons, with a focus on “air defense, artillery and long-range fires, armored vehicles” and air combat. They also said they would continue intelligence sharing with Ukraine, strengthen Kyiv’s defense industry and train Ukrainian troops.
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The countries will also work to increase the ability of Ukrainian and Western forces to operate in conjunction with each other, as well as to develop Ukraine’s capacity to combat cyberthreats.
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They also committed to providing further economic assistance to Ukraine, aid in reconstruction and recovery efforts, and “technical and financial support for Ukraine’s immediate needs stemming from Russia’s war.”
For its part, Ukraine pledged to pursue anticorruption policies, as well as work on overhauls to highlight its commitments to democracy and the rule of law.
Kyiv also promised to strengthen democratic civilian control of the military and make the country’s defense industry more transparent….
image….President Biden during a speech in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Wednesday, after the NATO summit wrapped up. Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Putin Now Fears His Elites No Less Than They Fear Him
Ivan Krastev: “The Kremlin’s response to the recent mutiny of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary boss, forces us to reconsider this picture. It was not Putin but the “collective Putin” (a mystical figure including, among others, Alexander Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus) that decided the outcome of the crisis. Putin the individual was irate and humiliated by Wagner’s betrayal and went on TV threatening ‘to be harsh.’ But the ‘collective Putin’ concluded that it would be wiser to negotiate with the rebels and find an exit strategy. We now know Putin met Prigozhin and other Wagner commanders on June 29. For someone obsessed with treason and betrayal, this was a bitter pill to swallow.”
“What has changed? Primarily, the relationship between Putin and the Russian elites. He now fears them no less than they fear him. He fears less their voice than their exit. Many of his closest collaborators blame him personally for the current state of affairs. It was Putin’s decision to instrumentalise the competition between Wagner and the defence ministry that ultimately led to Wagner’s march towards Moscow.”