Facing Russia: What’s Next for NATO at The Hague Summit?
As the NATO Summit 2025 in The Hague approaches, major questions loom about the Alliance’s unity, its response to the Russian threat, and the fate of Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration.
Political scientist and United Ukraine Think Tank expert Petro Oleshchuk offers a sobering analysis in his article for The Gaze: the summit could either become a turning point or a missed opportunity with dangerous consequences.
The upcoming NATO Summit on June 24–25 in The Hague is officially branded as a moment of strategic unity. But according to Petro Oleshchuk, it “increasingly resembles a crisis point.”
Oleshchuk raises a critical concern: despite the clear threat posed by Russia, NATO appears to be “balancing between making overdue decisions and lacking a strategic vision for its own future.”
He notes that Moscow’s aggression is no longer a hypothetical scenario. “The threat from Russia to NATO countries, which Ukraine has been talking about in recent years, is no longer just a verbal construct or a distant prospect, but something increasingly real.”
This growing threat includes the expansion of Russian military infrastructure near the Finnish border and possible preparations to test NATO’s Article 5 commitment.
“Russia does not need to capture any NATO member state yet. Saboteurs, spies, and the ‘fifth column’ are what can be used in the first stage of aggression,” Oleshchuk writes.
Meanwhile, the alliance’s internal divisions over defense budgets and Ukraine’s membership prospects are deepening. “The idea of increasing minimum defense spending from the current 2% to 5% by 2032 seems ambitious, but is already meeting with resistance,” he notes.
More troubling is the absence of Ukraine’s accession from the summit’s agenda: “There are no plans to invite Ukraine to join NATO at the summit. This issue is not even on the agenda.”
Despite labeling Russia a “long-term threat,” Oleshchuk argues that NATO’s deterrence strategy remains fragmented and insufficient.
“Until there is an alliance-wide program to counter Kremlin aggression at all levels, statements about the ‘threat’ may turn into a ritual formality — without consequences.”
Read the full article by Petro Oleshchuk on The Gaze: NATO Summit 2025: Will the Alliance Stand with Ukraine?