Leaders at the two-day NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, opened a way to Sweden’s accession to the alliance, provided new security commitments to Ukraine and made the strongest pledges yet that the country would one day become a member.
Wednesday's meeting wrapped up with some leaders (Ukraine, US, UK, Turkey, France, even NATO's Sec. General) all agreeing that Russia's aggression needs to be stopped, continued strengthening of NATO alliances and look forward to Ukraine becoming a member.
All though Russia is not a member of NATO the Russian foreign ministry made a statement on Wednesday accusing NATO of returning to its “Cold War schemes” by, among other things, refusing to adapt to a new global system that it no longer dominates. Washington and its allies “dream of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia,” the statement said, by beefing up its military presence on Russia’s borders.
“NATO is consistently lowering the threshold for the use of force and strengthening the nuclear component in military planning,” the statement said