The outcome of this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania hasn’t affected Russia’s military objectives as they pertain to Ukraine, according to Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Russian Security Council.
“The special military operation will continue with its goals unchanged,” Mr. Medvedev, who has previously served as both Russia’s president and prime minister, said on July 12.
He went on to assert that one of these goals was keeping Ukraine out of the Western NATO alliance.
“We have insisted on that from the outset,” Mr. Medvedev said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov holds a press conference at U.N. headquarters in New York on April 25, 2023. Mike Segar/Reuters
Kyiv and its Western allies have decried Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine as an unprovoked act of aggression.
Moscow, for its part, says its “special military operation” seeks to protect Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine and halt the further expansion of NATO to its doorstep.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov voiced similar sentiments after the summit, saying Moscow’s position had “not changed dramatically.”
“We are open to dialogue,” he was quoted as saying by Russia’s TASS news agency on July 13.
“But we will be guided by our legitimate interests and will balance approaches to a possible settlement with the situation on the ground.”
Letdown in Lithuania
While Ukraine had hoped to receive a formal invitation to join the military alliance at the organization’s NATO summit on July 11 and 12, it received only vague promises of eventual membership—with no timeline offered—once a raft of conditions is met.“Nobody knows when [Ukraine will join NATO] and on what conditions,” Mr. Medvedev said.
However, Kyiv did receive renewed assurances of support from NATO allies, along with fresh pledges of military assistance and “security guarantees” against Russian aggression.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who attended the summit, described the outcome as “good” but not “ideal.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (C) addresses the crowd while flanked by his wife Olena Zelenska (L) and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda at Lukiskiu Square in Vilnius, Lithuania, during the NATO Summit on July 11, 2023. Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images
“For the first time since independence, we have formed a security foundation for Ukraine on its way to NATO,” he said.
Kyiv, Mr. Zelenskyy noted, had also received “a good reinforcement with weapons.”
The summit also saw NATO member Turkey drop its objection to a months-long NATO bid by Sweden, paving the way for the Nordic country’s eventual accession to the alliance.
In April, Finland, which shares an 830-mile-long border with Russia, officially became NATO’s 31st member after Turkey approved the move.
Before joining NATO, applicants must be approved by all of the alliance’s members. Turkey joined NATO in 1952.
Kyiv Claims Modest Gains
This week’s summit in Lithuania coincided with an ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive aimed at retaking territory captured earlier by Russia.At the summit, Mr. Zelenskyy had hoped to highlight territorial gains registered by Ukrainian forces.
But even he has admitted that the counteroffensive, which began early last month, was progressing more slowly than initially hoped.
On July 11, the first day of the summit, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar pointed to limited gains on the southern front, which runs through Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
A still image from a video shows what Russia claims to be destroyed armored vehicles of the Ukrainian armed forces, in the southern Donetsk region of Ukraine on June 10, 2023. Russian Defense Ministry via Reuters
On the same day, Ukrainian Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi claimed that Russian forces had sustained hundreds of casualties over the previous 24 hours.
According to military officials in Kyiv, Ukrainian forces have so far retaken more than 100 square miles on the southern front, along with 15 square miles near the flashpoint city of Bakhmut.
A key transport hub in the eastern Donetsk region, Bakhmut (Artyomovsk in Russian) fell to Russian forces in May after nine months of fierce fighting.
The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces has claimed that Russian troops are now “trapped” in Bakhmut.
“The city is under the fire control of [Ukrainian] defense forces ... the enemy is being pushed out of their positions,” Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi asserted on July 11.
Moscow: 26,000 Troops Killed
However, Moscow disputed that claim, saying that Kyiv’s vaunted counteroffensive had entirely failed to penetrate Russian lines of defense.“Battles are raging for the Artyomovsk [Bakhmut] flanks,” Yan Gagin, an official of the Moscow-recognized Donetsk People’s Republic, told TASS on July 13.
“All of them are under the control of our forces and artillery.”
Earlier this week, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that more than 26,000 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed since the counteroffensive began five weeks ago.
Over the same period, Ukraine lost more than 3,000 pieces of military hardware, Mr. Shoigu told reporters on July 11.
According to the defense minister, the latter include aircraft, air-defense systems, and artillery pieces, along with Western-made tanks and armored vehicles.
The Epoch Times couldn’t verify battlefield assessments made by either of the warring parties.
Reuters contributed to this report.
