Mr. Zelenskyy, who vented his frustration after the summit, has only received reassuring words from U.S. President Joe Biden to the effect that Russian President Vladimir Putin “wrongly believes he can outlast Ukraine”. In reality, NATO has not only gone to great lengths to support Ukraine’s war efforts directly but has also waived its Membership Action Plan. Certainly, there is a chicken-and-egg dimension to this debate, and NATO has been particularly activated ever since Moscow’s unprovoked military incursion into Georgia in 2008 and subsequent annexation of Crimea in 2014. Yet war — even a war by proxies — is never a predictable prospect between the nuclear-armed rivals of the Cold War years. Rather than digging in their heels and setting the stage for further military escalation — now with the added cruelty of the cluster munitions promised by Mr. Biden to Mr. Zelenskyy — NATO leaders would have done well to explore potential pathways to a ceasefire and temporary cessation of hostilities.

Source: The Hindu July 13, 2023 22:11 UTC