Anxiety mounts for NATO officials over growing threat from Russia’s ‘bad decisions’

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ANKARA, Turkey — Senior NATO officials see the next nine months as a window of opportunity for Ukraine to compel Russia to the negotiating table, but that window will shrink quickly without the continued Western financial support that has given Ukraine its military leverage.

Security assistance for Ukraine emerged as the featured agenda item as the first day of high-stakes meetings between the leaders of NATO’s 32 member countries drew to a close Tuesday.

“While the battlefield remains difficult, Ukraine is increasingly shaping it,” a senior NATO official who spoke on condition of anonymity told reporters during a closed press briefing Tuesday. “There is a rare six- to nine-month window of opportunity in which Ukraine can continue to turn the tide, provided it has the right resources.”

Those resources, the official said, hinge on NATO member countries’ continued commitment to funding the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List, colloquially known as “PURL” — a program established by the U.S. and the rest of NATO in 2025 as an alternative to direct American military aid shipments to Ukraine, which President Donald Trump suspended after returning to the White House last year.

The initiative, championed by Trump as part of his broader demand for NATO countries to up their share of defense spending, works by requiring European and Canadian allies to fund Ukraine’s purchases of critical munitions from U.S. suppliers.

According to the NATO official, the program has been a driving force in Ukraine’s battlefield success as the warring countries continue to trade strikes on cities deep within opposing territory. But Russia has become increasingly reckless as the conflict drags well into its fourth year, and will soon catch up without more funding for Ukraine’s security needs.

“Russia in the past made bad decisions, right? They attacked Ukraine. You should have known that that was militarily not a good idea,” the official said. “They weren’t prepared for what they were taking on.”

Chief among Ukraine’s needs is a robust air defense system capable of countering Russia’s persistent drone and ballistic missile attacks, another senior NATO official said Tuesday.

“Russia remains a long-term threat to Euro-Atlantic security and has become more reckless towards Ukraine and certainly more reckless towards NATO as well,” the official said, adding that Russia has plans to modernize and enlarge its military force.

“Though it’s currently bogged down in Ukraine, Russia has begun to execute those plans,” the official said. “We’re seeing increases in equipment and personnel, we’re seeing successful expansion of the reserves and all building towards reaching a goal of 1.5 million people in uniform.”

Ongoing U.S. support remains a question mark for NATO member countries. Trump, who is attending the NATO summit, has turned much of his attention from “ending” the Russia-Ukraine war to his ongoing conflict with Iran. But the president spoke with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in separate phone calls last weekend. MS NOW confirmed the calls.

During the calls, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said, Trump reaffirmed “his readiness to facilitate the earliest possible cessation of hostilities.” Zelenskyy later said the pair discussed “a real prospect to put an end to this war,” and reaffirmed their plan to continue that discussion during their one-on-one meeting on the summit’s sidelines Wednesday.

NATO allies, in an effort to show they have been ramping up their defense spending in line with Trump’s demands, unveiled new defense deals worth billions on Tuesday.

“Last year, European allies and Canada spent nearly 20% more on core defense than they had the year before. European allies and Canada are now on a trajectory to equalize their defense spending with the U.S.,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said during a NATO address.