The last NATO summit held on June 24-25 in The Hague was the first one since 2022 that did not feature Ukraine and its desperate fight against Russian aggression as the main topic. Paradoxically, however, its results were broadly celebrated by Ukrainians as a great diplomatic success of both their country and its European partners, writes political analyst Mykola Riabchuk.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (L) and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R) listen as U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a press conference during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Heads of State and Government summit in The Hague on June 25, 2025. Photo: ANP / John Thys / AFP

The NATO summit was celebrated as a success in Ukraine for two interrelated reasons. Firstly, the final five-point declaration approved at the end of the meeting – the shortest in summit’s history – was the first to clearly define Russia as a ‘long-term threat to Euro-Atlantic security’. Secondly, the declaration reaffirmed the allies’ ‘enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine, whose security contributes to ours. This might not look like a succes: the mentioned support has been taken for granted for over three years already, and was now merely reconfirmed in The Hague. But it evoked a sigh of relief and even a cheerful mood in Ukraine that can be barely understood without accounting for the sea of changes in international politics of the past half a year and the fundamentally new relations between the U.S. and its former allies.

Trumpism

The shortest name for those changes is Trumpism – a reckless and self-aggrandizing approach to policymaking long characteristic of many dictatorships, which suddenly became the national style of the world’s largest, oldest, and presumably strongest democracy. Ukraine emerged as perhaps the main collateral victim of these changes. The new U.S. president indicated his willingness to make a peace deal with Moscow by tacitly accepting all its maximalist demands - pushing Ukraine toward a de facto capitulation - and exerting great pressure on Kyiv while sparing Moscow from any new sanctions. The United States even abstained from condemning Russia’s aggression at international fora such as the UN and the G7. Moscow correctly saw this perverse brand of ‘peacemaking’ for what it is: appeasement. Since January, Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian cities have surged, with the lion’s share made up by ‘proxy bombing’ – strikes that deliberately target civilian infrastructure, residential areas, and civilians.

Moscow correctly saw this perverse brand of ‘peacemaking’ for what it is: appeasement

NATO could also fall victim to this new political wind. After the U.S. president raised bizarre territorial claims against fellow NATO members Denmark and Canada, he threatened to withdraw U.S troops from Europe. He even questioned the validity of Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which obliges all members to help each other in the event of external aggression, treating the attack on one member state as an attack on all. All these statements were encouraging signals for Moscow, music to Putin’s ears. He quickly learned how to exploit the ignorance, vanity and buffoonery of his self-assigned ‘pal’ in Washington. Moscow’s six-month-long ‘peace talks’ game forms an excellent case study of calculated perfidy on one side, and miscalculated stupidity on the other.

Within this context, the U.S. signature under the final document that reiterates NATO’s commitment to assist Ukraine and recognizes Russia as the main security threat (alongside international terrorism) comes as a nice surprise. The fact that the declaration implicitly maintains past promises to eventually admit Ukraine as a NATO member, in spite of Trump’s inclination to block it at Putin’s request, is a good reason for celebration.

Most commentators attribute this (relative) success to the diplomatic skills and mundane efforts of European leaders, who apparently learned how to play on Donald Trump’s hubris and narcissism by looking at Moscow's example. Since Zelensky’s spectacular catastrophe in the Oval Office at the end of February, they reasonably concluded (and also conveyed this to their Ukrainian counterpart) that the new U.S. president is not a person who tolerates opinions that contradict his own, nor is he inclined to listen to inconvenient arguments. The NATO summit in the Hague was staged as a one-man show where the whole universe revolved around King Don. He stood at the royal palace as a personal guest of the Dutch king and queen, he was praised and thanked by all the summit participants, and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte played a leading role in this flattering and buttering. Even president Zelensky, to please the boss, changed out of his traditional paramilitary khaki outfit into something resembling a black suit.

Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump meet at the NATO Summit in The Hague. Photo: Office of the President of Ukraine

Some observers rushed to mock all this as Europeans’ humility, bordering on self-humiliation. Rishi Iyengar and John Haltiwanger of Foreign Policy have even titled their report on the NATO summit ‘Stockholm Syndrome in The Hague’, thereby comparing the participants to hostages or abuse victims who develop positive feelings towards their abuser. Others, however, argued that the efforts paid off, and that the ultimate success is what really matters.

The NATO summit in the Hague was staged as a one-man show where the whole universe revolved around King Don

As Hans Morgenthau averred long ago in his classic book Politics Among Nations (1948), the ‘ethics in abstract’ is not applicable in the field of international relations. ‘Morality of political decisions’, he argued, ‘should not be judged by intentions but by results.’ From this ‘realist’ point of view, one could argue that it was actually Trump who was humiliated: he was treated as a fussy child, assured by conspirators that he was not just any ‘Napoleon’, but the greatest ‘Napoleon’ of all time.

The impact of public opinion

There may have been another reason behind the American president’s more conciliatory stance toward Ukraine and NATO allies: domestic public opinion. A growing segment of the U.S. population disapproves of Trump’s appeasement of Putin and hardline posture toward Ukraine and Europe.

A survey from May-June indicates that 37 percent of respondents believe the Trump administration favors Russia when it comes to negotiating an end to the conflict, 36 percent feel their government is taking a neutral approach, and only 14 percent say the White House is favoring Ukraine. And since most Americans have very negative views of Putin, consider Russia a major adversary and security threat, and overwhelmingly condemn its aggression against Ukraine, the president cannot fully ignore these views and rely exclusively on his core MAGA electorate. The growing criticism of Trump’s policies in Congress, including the voices of influential Republicans, may have also contributed to the shift of his initial position. And last but not least, NATO members agreed in the Hague to gradually raise their expenditures on defense to 5 percent of the budget – something that the boastful American president can present to his faithful electorate as a major victory.

Mykola Riabchuk

Politiek analist en schrijver

Mykola Riabchuk (1953) is a Ukrainian political analyst and writer. He is a principal research fellow at the Institute of Political Studies in Kyiv and a visiting researcher at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw.

How long Trump will stay in this mood is unclear. What is clear, however, is that the Russian president has assessed the threat properly. He has already responded with another deceptive proposal to resume the ‘peace talks’ with Ukraine in Istanbul – a smokescreen that allows him to continue killing Ukrainians and bombing infrastructure while avoiding serious U.S. sanctions.

A second problem may haunt both Ukrainians and Europeans internally. Although the increase of defense expenditures to 5 percent of the budget is a modest success in international politics, it should be followed up by successful domestic policies to implement this decision, and by public communication towards the population. It is easier to declare increased defense expenditures than to actually fulfill that promise, due to economic constraints and electoral concerns. Leaders need to engage in effective public communication surrounding the increased defense spending, and they should spend this money while maintaining a healthy economy.

According to Europe-wide surveys, the majority of respondents approve of further support for Ukraine, recognize the Russian threat, and agree to gradually increase defense expenditures. They disapprove of pressuring Kyiv to cede occupied territories or lifting sanctions on Russia, even if the U.S. changes course. The devil, however, dwells in the details: the same surveys reveal big differences in opinions and attitudes between countries, political parties and social groups. This suggests that the relative success of the summit in The Hague marks not an endpoint but the beginning of hard, painstaking work. The support for Ukraine and increased defense expenditure may fade away when economic consequences become more palpable. As former European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker once joked: ‘We all know what to do. We just don’t know how to get reelected after we’ve done it.’