NATO meets in DC to future-proof aid to Ukraine

(Originally published July 9 in “What in the World“) The North Atlantic Treaty Organization will likely make a collective, one-year pledge of $43 billion in military aid to Ukraine during this week’s summit.

The meeting in Washington is being overshadowed by questions swirling around two of its most powerful leaders: doubts in U.S. President Joe Biden’s own party about whether he is too old to beat Donald Trump for re-election, and concerns that French President Emmanuel Macron may now face parliamentary deadlock after elections that left neither the left nor the right with a majority.

NATO reportedly plans to station a permanent civilian employee in Kyiv and to create a 700-person team in Germany to take over much of the job of coordinating weapons supplies to Ukraine from the U.S. military. The move is meant to ensure that Washington’s European allies are shouldering more of the burden for their own defense, as well as to ring-fence aid to Ukraine from the possibility that Trump might be re-elected and withdraw the U.S. from NATO.

Russia, meanwhile, launched its deadliest wave of air strikes in months against Ukrainian cities, a daylight barrage that killed at least 36 civilians. Ukrainian air defenses reportedly shot down 30 of the 38 missiles fired but failed to block one that hit a children’s hospital in Kyiv.

Iran-backed Hezbollah militants launched a drone strike against Israeli military positions in the Golan Heights.

The weekend attacks, which targeted positions around Mount Hermon, escalated the conflict that has been bubbling higher on the Israel-Lebanon border since Hamas’ Oct. 8 attack on Israel prompted Israel’s large-scale assault on Gaza.

Iran, meanwhile, is reportedly stepping up its production of ballistic missiles at two facilities near Tehran. Iran supplies missiles not only to Hezbollah and to Yemen’s Houthi rebels, but also to Russia.