At its annual summit, NATO had some significant successes: Turkey lifted its objections to Sweden’s membership; the alliance approved new spending goals and military plans; and all 31 member states agreed that Ukraine belongs in NATO, a significant shift in position stemming from Ukraine’s brave, resilient defense of its country and of Western values.
At its annual summit, NATO had some significant successes: Turkey lifted its objections to Sweden’s membership; the alliance approved new spending goals and military plans; and all 31 member states agreed that Ukraine belongs in NATO, a significant shift in position stemming from Ukraine’s brave, resilient defense of its country and of Western values.
Even so, the summit’s final communiqué does not disguise some serious strains among alliance members in the bitter fight over how to describe Ukraine’s path toward NATO membership. Ukraine was promised an invitation “when allies agree and conditions are met,” leaving both the timing and the conditions unsaid, to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s consternation.
Even so, the summit’s final communiqué does not disguise some serious strains among alliance members in the bitter fight over how to describe Ukraine’s path toward NATO membership. Ukraine was promised an invitation “when allies agree and conditions are met,” leaving both the timing and the conditions unsaid, to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s consternation.
When Ukraine was initially promised membership in 2008, at a summit in Bucharest, the statement was a way to cover over deeper and more lasting divisions, with Germany and France absolutely opposed to Ukrainian membership, while Washington wanted to give Kyiv a clear path to join. That balance has now shifted.
When Ukraine was initially promised membership in 2008, at a summit in Bucharest, the statement was a way to cover over deeper and more lasting divisions, with Germany and France absolutely opposed to Ukrainian membership, while Washington wanted to give Kyiv a clear path to join. That balance has now shifted.
Biden speaks: The U.S. president compared the battle to expel Russia from Ukraine with the Cold War struggle for freedom in Europe, promising that “we will not waver” no matter how long the war continues. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, “still wrongly believes that he can outlast Ukraine,” he said. He added: “He is making a bad bet.”
Biden speaks: The U.S. president compared the battle to expel Russia from Ukraine with the Cold War struggle for freedom in Europe, promising that “we will not waver” no matter how long the war continues. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, “still wrongly believes that he can outlast Ukraine,” he said. He added: “He is making a bad bet.”
The Russian military has been roiled by instability in the days since a short-lived insurrection by Wagner mercenaries three weeks ago, as pressures from Moscow’s nearly 17-month war reverberate across the armed forces. One commander has disappeared, two have been killed and a fourth accused his leadership of treachery after being fired.
Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the country’s former top commander in Ukraine, has not been seen publicly since the Wagner rebellion. He was considered to be an ally of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary company, whose forces mounted the brief insurrection in late June, aimed at toppling Russia’s military leadership, before standing down in a deal with the Kremlin.
The Times reported that U.S. officials believe that General Surovikin had advance knowledge of the mutiny, but do not know whether he participated. In the hours after the rebellion began, the Russian authorities quickly released a video of the general calling on the Wagner fighters to stand down.
In other news about the war: Republicans on the far right who are pushing to load up the annual defense bill with socially conservative policies on abortion, race and gender have another demand: severe restrictions on U.S. military support for Ukraine.
Critics of the plan by Israel’s right-wing government to overhaul the country’s judiciary have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of what they call salami tactics: slicing up the legislative package in order to make it more palatable. (To make that point, some protesters brandished giant plastic salamis during demonstrations this week.)
The government argues that the plan would simply give more power to elected officials and take more control from unelected Supreme Court judges, who it says are overstepping in their roles. But Netanyahu may be searching for ways to proceed with the plan more slowly, after protests in March brought parts of the country to a virtual standstill.
By using a more piecemeal approach, the prime minister may be trying to appease his hard-line coalition partners, who insist on progress, while trying to make the changes easier for critics to swallow. Shelving the plan could mean a collapse of the government and a return to the kind of political instability that has led Israel to hold five elections in the past four years.
In Jenin: President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority visited Jenin, a battle-scarred and impoverished Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank that was the target of a two-day raid by the Israeli military last week.
The international drug trade has unleashed a wave of violence in Ecuador, with at least 4,500 related killings last year. Above, Ana Morales at the tomb of her son.
Extreme heat in the U.S. is expected to worsen this weekend, with temperatures surpassing 100 degrees in parts of the South. And in Florida, coral reefs are threatened by dangerously warm ocean temperatures.
A former Mozambican official accused in the $2 billion “tuna” scandal, a scheme that defrauded U.S. investors, was extradited to New York.
Spain dispatch: At bullfights in Spain, people with dwarfism perform comic roles. Opponents claim it is illegal under a new law, but performers say that the show must go on.
NASA has released yet another breathtaking snapshot of our universe made with the James Webb Space Telescope.
Chinese hackers targeted specific State Department email accounts in the weeks before Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to China last month, U.S. officials said.
The news anchor Huw Edwards was identified by his wife as the BBC staff member suspended on allegations of sexual misconduct. She said that he had been hospitalized with “serious mental health issues.”
Lawmakers in the E.U. approved a bill that would require bloc countries to restore 20 percent of their degraded nature areas.
Economists are growing more optimistic that the U.S. can rein in inflation without causing a recession.
Snow fell in Johannesburg for the first time in more than a decade.
“Succession” received the most nominations for the Emmy Awards. See the full list of snubs and surprises.
Sophie Hughes is a literary translator, working between Spanish and English. It is, she writes, “an ungrudging obsession,” sometimes requiring attempt after attempt after attempt — but not without its pleasures.
See how she carries a book from Spanish to English, line by line.
Speaking with a soccer legend: Zinedine Zidane talks player development, penalty composure and teaching imagination.
Geopolitics at Wimbledon: The war in Ukraine has had an impact on the tournament for a second year.
How Nyck de Vries lost his F1 seat: A rough year led to his being replaced by Daniel Ricciardo.
From The Times: Elina Svitolina, who has said she is playing to give strength to fellow Ukrainians, is one match away from an improbable spot in the Wimbledon final. (See more coverage from the tournament.)
The author Milan Kundera, best known for his novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” which was adapted into a film, died on Tuesday at 94.
His mordant, sexually charged novels captured the suffocating absurdity of life in his native Czechoslovakia, where Communists had seized power in 1948.
“It’s hard to overstate how central Milan Kundera was, in the mid-1980s, to literary culture in America and elsewhere,” Dwight Garner writes in this appraisal. “He was the best-known Czech writer since Kafka, and his fiction brought news of sophisticated Eastern European societies trembling under the threat of Soviet repression.”
Cacio e pepe is a perfected Roman classic.
In the seventh “Mission Impossible” movie, Tom Cruise cranks the superspy dial up to 11.
Britney Spears’s memoir, “The Woman in Me,” will be released on Oct. 24.
Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Pharmacist’s amount (four letters).
And here are today’s Wordle and the Spelling Bee.
You can find all our puzzles here.
That’s it for today’s briefing. Thanks for joining me. — Natasha
P.S. Alice Callahan will be our new nutrition reporter.
The latest episode of “The Daily” is on the U.S. labor report.
You can reach Natasha and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.
