This July, Washington, DC will host the NATO summit, marking the Alliance’s diamond jubilee. This summer’s summit comes at a critical juncture as for the first time since the end of World War II, a major power is committing aggression in Europe. Putin’s war on Ukraine not only seeks the subjugation of Ukraine but is also part of the Kremlin’s revisionist agenda, which threatens all of Ukraine’s neighbors and is designed to undermine the NATO Alliance and the values of democracy and transatlantic security that the Alliance protects.

Last summer in Vilnius, the NATO summit delivered a vague promise to invite Ukraine to join NATO “when allies agree and conditions are met.” The year since has been marked by enduring and increased violence by Russia in Ukraine and directed moves by the Kremlin to destabilize international financial and food systems and engage in influence campaigns to challenge the democratic world, all while the United States stalled on providing Ukraine with critical aid until just last month.

Russia’s aggressive policy, most evident in its savage war on Ukraine, is a grave threat to US and European security and prosperity.  Ukraine is at the front lines of the defense of Europe. Long-term US and Allied security require a secure and stable Ukraine. Right now, that means NATO and its partners should provide Kyiv all the aid it needs to win this war; it also means the Ukraine must become a member of NATO.

The Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center convenes two panels of former senior US national security officials, as well as top experts on Russia, Ukraine, the transatlantic relationship, and NATO to discuss the authoritarian challenge that Russia and its allies pose to the US, NATO, and the West, and what should happen at the summit this summer to address the specifics of Putin’s revisionist agenda.