Putin Has Failed All Goals in Ukraine - ISW

The NATO summit held the day before in Vilnius, Lithuania, demonstrated the complete failure of the Russian Federation's goals for which they started the war.

This is stated in the report of the American Institute for the Study of War of 12 July.

According to analysts, Russia's aggression against the neighbouring country has set back the goals for which the Kremlin started the war. The NATO summit was able to send a signal to President Vladimir Putin and the entire political elite that the allies will not allow Kyiv to fail.

"The goal of preventing NATO's expansion and, indeed, reversing previous rounds of NATO enlargement and pushing NATO away from Russia's borders was one of the Kremlin's stated demands before the invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin constantly repeated this goal throughout the war. The absence of a general resonance in the Russian information space regarding the events at the NATO summit, as well as Finland's accession to NATO, most likely indicates that the Kremlin has realised its defeat and does not want to remember it," the report said.

The ISW also mentioned Turkey's decision to send a protocol on the accession of another country to the Alliance - Sweden.

All these factors indicate that the Russians have failed to reach the goals they wanted to achieve at the end of February 2022. The Russian media and propaganda TV channels were mute and impartial in their coverage of the event.

As reported by The Gaze, during the NATO Summit in Vilnius on 12 July, the Group of Seven (G7) and NATO signed agreements to provide Ukraine with long-term security commitments - a multi-year practical assistance programme, establish a NATO-Ukraine Coordination Council, and commit NATO to allow Ukraine to join the alliance without going through the Membership Action Plan (MAP). G7 members Germany, Japan, France, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States signed a common framework document called "Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine" aimed at providing military, financial and intelligence support to Ukraine and stated that each G7 member would start bilateral security talks with Ukraine on the document. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that other countries would have the opportunity to join the declaration later. The common framework document also reportedly promises immediate steps to quickly provide Ukraine with all the support it needs in the event of another attack, but does not specify what that support would look like. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the agreements reached at the NATO summit meant that Ukraine would receive formal security guarantees, although neither NATO nor G7 agreements currently provide such guarantees. Ukraine reached significant agreements that will strengthen the West's long-term support for Ukraine at the NATO summit, and these agreements are likely to serve as a basis for potentially increasing Western security assistance to Ukraine.

During the second day of the NATO Summit on 12 July, Ukraine reached additional bilateral agreements in the security and defence sector. Ukraine's Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov signed agreements with Swedish Defence Minister Paul Jonsson on cooperation in defence procurement and with the French Ministry of Defence on increasing French military aid to Ukraine by €170 million. The Office of the President of Ukraine announced that Australia will send 30 additional Bushmaster armoured vehicles to Ukraine. The UK government announced that the UK will provide Ukraine with an additional £50 million in security assistance, including additional ammunition for Challenger tanks. Norwegian Defence Minister Bjørn Arild Gram said that Norway would provide an additional package of support for NASAM (Norwegian Advanced Surface to Air Missile System), including two additional fire control centres, two launchers and spare parts.   Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that Japan would provide Ukraine with $30 million worth of non-lethal equipment, including drone detection systems. 

It was also reported that President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy summed up the results of the last NATO summit. According to him, no one should have any doubts that Kyiv will join the Alliance in the future.