INVESTIGATION: NATO fractures before Ankara — €70 billion at stake, Italy, and the time running out

July 2026: the moment of reckoning in Ankara

On July 7 and 8, 2026, the heads of state and government of NATO member countries will gather in Ankara, Turkey. On the table: a commitment of €70 billion in military aid to Ukraine for 2026, and the question of whether that amount will be renewed for 2027. Behind the façade of unity the Alliance works to project, the fractures are real, documented, and significant. Italy is formally opposed to any dated commitment for 2027. Several other allies are wavering. Russia is watching.

This summit arrives in a particular context: it is the first major NATO gathering since the United States signaled a reduction in its direct engagement in Ukrainian military funding. The 2026 €70 billion package is a European construction — €30 billion in loans from the European Union and €40 billion in bilateral commitments inherited from the 2024 Washington summit. If the Alliance divides publicly at Ankara over what comes next, it sends Moscow a signal worth a thousand declarations.

Turkey's role as host country

The choice of Ankara as the host city is not incidental. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Turkey is itself a complex ally within NATO — maintaining relations with Russia through gas flows and exports, while supplying Bayraktar drones to Ukraine. Hosting the summit in Ankara signals that the Alliance is working to keep Turkey within its diplomatic perimeter, at a time when Erdoğan has occasionally positioned himself as a mediator in Russia-Ukraine negotiations.

Turkey's role as host also gives Ankara the diplomatic visibility it knows how to use. Turkey could leverage the summit to advance its own files — the Sweden and Finland accession question already resolved, but also arms delivery questions and its relations with the United States. Western chancelleries are aware of this dual agenda. They nonetheless choose to use Ankara as a symbol of the Alliance's internal cohesion.

NATO has survived deeper crises than this one — but rarely with an active war on its immediate borders. What is at stake in Ankara is not a budget debate. It is an existential cohesion test.

How this figure was built

The €70 billion in military aid to Ukraine for 2026 is the result of a complex financial architecture assembled without direct American participation. The first pillar is a €30 billion European Union loan, approved by European institutions after lengthy internal negotiations. This loan is backed by the interest generated on Russian assets frozen by the West since 2022 — an innovative legal construction that remains contested by Moscow but validated by the principal Western jurisdictions.

The second pillar consists of €40 billion in bilateral commitments, distributed among NATO member countries on the basis of pledges made at the 2024 Washington summit. These commitments include deliveries of military equipment, training programs, ammunition transfers, and in some cases direct financial components. Together, these two pillars form the baseline of support for Ukraine in 2026 — a solid foundation, but one whose renewal is not automatic.

The legal architecture of frozen assets

The use of interest from frozen Russian assets as the basis of the €30 billion European loan constitutes a legal innovation without precedent at this scale. These assets — estimated at more than €300 billion, held primarily by the Euroclear platform in Belgium — were frozen in response to the 2022 invasion. Using their interest income to fund Ukrainian defense is a decision validated by European institutions and G7 governments.

This architecture is contested by Moscow, which calls it "theft" — an accusation Western legal scholars unanimously reject, noting that it concerns the interest on frozen assets, not the assets themselves, and that the freeze is a measure of applicable international law in response to an act of aggression. The legal solidity of this mechanism matters: if it holds over time, it provides a funding base that does not depend on annual political votes in national parliaments.

€70 billion without the United States. Two years ago, that number would have seemed impossible. Today, it defines the new reality of NATO: an Alliance learning to stand without its traditional pillar. That is uncomfortable. It is also necessary.

The Italian position and its deeper motivations

The government in Rome has made clear, in the consultations preceding the Ankara summit, its opposition to any formal, quantified commitment for 2027. Italy is not opposed to supporting Ukraine in principle — it participated in the 2024 and 2026 commitments. What it refuses is the setting of a specific date and amount before the military and diplomatic situation of 2027 is even known. Officially, this is a position of budgetary prudence and strategic flexibility.

Behind this stated principle, however, analysts identify several factors. Domestic pressure on the Meloni government regarding Italian public spending — in a context where public debt is among the highest in the eurozone — limits its political room to maneuver. Part of the governing coalition's electoral base is skeptical of prolonged military engagement abroad. And if the 2027 commitment is confirmed at €70 billion, the total would reach €140 billion over two years — a figure several European capitals are scrutinizing with caution.

Italy has the right to ask for flexibility. What it does not have the right to do is use that prudence as an instrument to weaken the Alliance's collective position before a Russia that reads every crack. Budgetary good faith does not justify geopolitical bad timing.

If 2027 is confirmed: a double wager

Renewing the €70 billion commitment for 2027 would bring the two-year total to €140 billion in European military aid to Ukraine, excluding any American contribution. That figure, if confirmed at Ankara, would send a clear strategic signal: Europe is capable of funding long-term military support for Ukraine without depending on the goodwill of Washington. It is a declaration of strategic autonomy as much as a budget line.

Proponents of confirming the 2027 commitment — notably the Baltic states, Poland, Scandinavian countries, and several Central European nations — argue that budgetary uncertainty is more costly than a firm pledge. Ukraine must be able to plan its acquisitions, its training cycles, its infrastructure repairs on the basis of predictable commitments. Strategic ambiguity benefits Moscow and complicates Ukrainian military planning at a moment when every month counts.

The budget calculation behind Rome's refusal

Italy's debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds 140 percent — among the highest in the eurozone after Greece. In this context, committing to an additional €70 billion in 2027 represents a budgetary constraint the Meloni government must weigh against other domestic priorities. That is not an excuse — it is a context. Managing massive public debt creates real pressure on political room to maneuver, even for governments that genuinely wish to contribute to collective security.

However, defense economists argue that the cost of not supporting Ukraine — in terms of regional instability, national defense spending that would need to surge if Russia prevails, and commercial damage from European insecurity — far exceeds the cost of current commitments. That is the argument allies with the strongest commitment are bringing to Rome in the corridors of NATO headquarters. It has not yet convinced the Meloni government to shift its position on fixing a date for 2027.

€140 billion — that is the price of European collective security in its most direct form. This is not charity. It is life insurance. And Italy, like any policyholder, has a stake in keeping the system solvent.

Budapest and its complex relationship with the Alliance

Hungary represents the second friction point within NATO on the Ukrainian file. The Orbán government has accumulated divergent positions since 2022: refusal to allow arms deliveries to Ukraine through its territory, maintenance of economic relations with Russia, repeated opposition to additional sanctions within the EU, and sustained contacts with Moscow that its allies consider problematic. Budapest does not formally block NATO decisions — which operate by consensus — but its capacity to slow and complicate processes is well documented.

Hungary's position ahead of Ankara is not clearly articulated when it comes to 2027 funding. But several diplomatic sources cited by Ukrainian media indicate that Budapest shares Italy's reluctance about dated commitments, for partially different reasons. Hungary maintains a line of communication with Moscow that it presents as "neutrality" but that its allies read as a troubling asymmetry of loyalty within the Alliance.

Orbán inside NATO is the structural anomaly the Alliance refuses to name clearly. There is no formal mechanism to exclude a recalcitrant member. There is only peer pressure — and that has limits when dealing with a government that has decided national sovereignty outranks collective cohesion.

Billions announced in the wings of industry

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced on June 25, 2026 that the Ankara summit would see the unveiling of several billion euros in new defense contracts. These contracts do not directly concern aid to Ukraine — they are aimed at reinforcing the industrial defense capabilities of NATO member countries, several of which must significantly increase their production to meet the 2 percent of GDP defense spending target, or exceed it.

This industrial agenda is presented by proponents of Ukraine support as complementary to direct funding: increasing munitions and equipment production in Europe reduces dependence on an American industry whose priorities can shift. For critics, it is also a way to navigate political roadblocks on direct funding by investing in capacity rather than in checks. The strategy is less politically visible — and perhaps more durable.

Rutte is playing two boards at Ankara simultaneously: aid to Ukraine on one side, NATO industrial autonomy on the other. That is high-stakes diplomacy — with live ammunition as the wager. I wish him well.

A backup mechanism if the war continues

Alongside the discussions at NATO, the European Union is preparing a new financing mechanism that could reach €45 billion in additional funding if the conflict extends beyond 2027. This mechanism, reported by several media outlets including Fakti on June 25, 2026, has not yet been formally approved — it is being developed within Brussels' institutional structures. It would aim to guarantee continuity of financial support even in a scenario where internal NATO divisions prevent a collective agreement.

This dual system — NATO financing + EU financing — is emblematic of the post-American architecture being built piece by piece since 2025. It is less coherent and more complex than direct American engagement, but it is more politically resilient. No single member country can block all mechanisms on its own. It is an architecture of resilience built precisely to withstand internal political obstruction — such as that exercised by Rome and Budapest.

Brussels is constructing a financing architecture that routes around national political roadblocks. It is a pragmatic answer to an uncomfortable reality: you cannot always count on unanimity when lives are on the line. I prefer that to paralysis.

Kyiv between expectations and caution

Volodymyr Zelensky and his diplomatic team expect the Ankara summit to deliver concrete commitments on several fronts. First, confirmation of the continuity of military funding — ideally with an announcement on 2027, at minimum with a strong statement of intent. Second, progress on the delivery of specific weapons systems that Ukrainian forces need to hold current defensive lines. Third, a diplomatic signal to Moscow: NATO holds, and its members are prepared to sustain support for as long as necessary.

Ukrainian diplomatic sources cited by News Ukraine RBC stress that budgetary clarity has direct military value. If Ukraine knows it will have €70 billion more in 2027, it can plan medium-term acquisitions, train additional battalions, and negotiate weapons contracts on more advantageous multi-year terms. Uncertainty, by contrast, forces costly emergency purchases and short-term planning that undermines strategic coherence at the very moment when every month matters.

Zelensky expects from Ankara not speeches but numbers. He learned over two years that vague promises do not hold against real missiles. Allies who understand that will send clear signals. The others will send press releases.

Those who know what a border with Russia means

While Italy and Hungary represent the internal resistance points, the Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — and Poland are the engine of pro-Ukrainian cohesion within NATO. These countries share a direct border with Russia or with Belarus, Moscow's ally. They are not doing abstract geopolitics — they are managing an immediately proximate threat. Their positions on supporting Ukraine, measured as a share of their GDP, frequently exceed those of far wealthier countries.

These governments are pushing for a firm commitment at Ankara. They argue that every euro invested in Ukraine's defense is one euro that avoids spending ten times more on their own defense facing a victorious Russia. That argument — economically rational and geopolitically sound — does not convince all of their allies. But it structures the internal NATO debate in a way that cannot be ignored.

Baltic contributions: beyond symbolism

Estonia devotes more than 3 percent of its GDP to defense — a record among NATO members. Latvia and Lithuania both exceed the 2 percent threshold. These figures are not symbolic: they translate into equipment deliveries, training of Ukrainian soldiers, and active diplomatic support in international forums. These countries, small in size but resolute from historical experience, embody the most direct form of Western solidarity.

The message Baltic states are carrying to Ankara is simple and documented by their public positions: ambiguity kills. Every month of uncertainty about 2027 commitments slows Ukrainian planning. They are pushing for a firm declaration — and they are prepared to increase their own proportional contributions further if necessary. This exemplary posture is both moral and strategic: it removes any justification from allies who might invoke their own constraints to rationalize weaker commitments.

Poland and the Baltic states do geopolitics in their bones — because their survival depends on it. While Italy debates budgetary flexibility, Estonia is thinking about its borders. This asymmetry of risk exposure explains everything.

If Ankara delivers next to nothing

A minimal agreement at Ankara — confirming the 2026 €70 billion without a clear commitment on 2027, accompanied by vague language about "long-term support" — would technically be an agreement, but diplomatically a weak signal. Moscow knows how to read post-summit communiqués. An ambiguous formulation on 2027 would be interpreted as a crack in Western cohesion — because it is one. Russia has always bet on Western exhaustion. A summit that validates doubts about the durability of support reinforces that wager.

There is also a market risk: weapons contracts, industrial planning cycles, and sovereign fund commitments that indirectly back Ukraine's defense effort are all indexed to the predictability of political pledges. An ambiguous signal at Ankara could introduce an uncertainty premium into those financial calculations — with practical downstream effects on the Ukrainian military supply chain in the months that follow.

A failed summit does not detonate a bomb. It slows a supply chain, weakens a contract, delays a delivery. The damage is invisible in the short term — and devastating in the medium term. That is exactly the kind of harm Moscow is hoping for.

An Alliance reinventing itself under pressure

The Ankara summit is also, at a deeper level, a test of NATO's capacity to function without the United States as its uncontested leader. The Trump administration has signaled consistently since 2025 that Europe must assume a greater share of its own security and that of Ukraine. This shift in American posture has forced a reorganization of responsibilities within the Alliance.

This reorganization is painful — it exposes budgetary vulnerabilities, political disagreements, and differences in risk perception. But it also creates an opportunity to build a more robust European cohesion. The 2026 €70 billion without Washington would have been unthinkable in 2022. It became reality. If Ankara confirms 2027, Europe will have proven it can assume a major strategic responsibility on its own. This is a historical test — and its results will be readable for decades to come.

Europe learning to hold without Washington — that is the deep story of this summit. It is not comfortable. It was not planned. But it may be the only worthwhile lesson of the Trump era: forcing Europe to grow up. The outcome is uncertain. The need is real.

Third parties observing closely

The world is watching Ankara carefully — and not only the directly involved parties. China is analyzing NATO's capacity to maintain cohesion against a prolonged conflict. Beijing, calculating its own margins in the South China Sea and regarding Taiwan, draws operational conclusions from the fractures or the solidity of the Atlantic Alliance. A NATO that divides at Ankara sends a signal to Xi Jinping as much as to Putin.

Iran, which maintains its de facto alliance with Moscow through Shahed drone supplies, is watching too. North Korea, whose soldiers are dying in Russia for technological and diplomatic gains, follows the evolving balance of forces in Europe. These actors are not passive — they adjust their positions based on what they read in Western signals. Ankara is an international communication, not merely a budget meeting.

The negotiating margins before July 7

The days between the writing of this article and the Ankara summit are days of intensive diplomacy. Sherpas — senior officials who draft the final declarations — are working on formulations that would allow Italy to save face while preserving the substance of the commitment. Phrases such as "commitment to maintaining a comparable level of support in 2027 subject to a mid-year review" could satisfy Rome without emptying the declaration of its meaning for Kyiv.

These linguistic compromises are the real engine of multilateral diplomacy. NATO has long experience with formulations that allow countries with divergent positions to sign the same document. The question is whether that experience will be sufficient to produce a final declaration that is both acceptable to Rome and readable as a strong commitment by Kyiv and Moscow. That is the sherpas' challenge in the days ahead.

Xi Jinping reads NATO communiqués the way an investor reads a quarterly report: he is looking for signals of structural weakness. Every fracture at Ankara is strategic information for Beijing. Alliance members would do well to remember that.

The possible scenarios before July 8

Three scenarios are taking shape ahead of the July 7–8, 2026 summit. The optimistic scenario: an agreement on the 2026 €70 billion accompanied by a firm statement of intent on 2027, with a mid-year review mechanism that addresses Italian reservations. This scenario preserves Alliance cohesion and sends a strong signal to Moscow. It is technically achievable if Rome secures the terminological flexibility it is asking for without compromising the substance of the commitment.

The intermediate scenario: confirmation of 2026 only, with vague language on 2027 referring to a year-end review meeting. This scenario maintains the appearance of cohesion but introduces six additional months of uncertainty — a period during which Ukraine will have to plan without a clear budgetary safety net. The pessimistic scenario: an open deadlock, with a final declaration so watered down it constitutes a measurable diplomatic setback. This scenario is unlikely — NATO diplomats have deep experience with surface-level compromise — but it is not excluded if positions remain polarized until the last moment.

I am not in the Ankara negotiating rooms. I read public signals. And those signals tell me that cohesion is fragile but not broken — that compromise is still possible — but that time works against anyone hoping the fractures will close on their own.

Ammunition production as industrial emergency

Behind the financial commitment figures, the Ankara summit will also confront the industrial question: can Europe produce sufficient ammunition, armored vehicles, and air defense systems to support Ukraine sustainably? The answer, in July 2026, is still partially no. Production lines in several member countries have been accelerated since 2022, but they have not yet reached the output levels of World War II that some military analysts judge necessary for a conflict of this intensity and duration.

The contracts Rutte announced before the summit target precisely this deficit. By funding new industrial capabilities — new 155 mm shell production lines, new drone assembly plants, new maintenance contracts for Ukrainian equipment — NATO is investing in long-term support capacity that does not depend on an annual political vote. It is a way to work around recurring political debates over figures by creating industrial facts that are difficult to unwind.

The countries that produce versus those counting their euros

Poland has committed massive investments in its national defense industry since 2022 — it is today one of the largest producers of military equipment in Europe, with direct effects on its capacity to support Ukraine. The Baltic states, despite their size, have proportionally expanded their capabilities far beyond what their GDP would suggest. By contrast, some Western European countries — including Italy — have developed defense sectors but face political constraints on deploying them in service of the Ukrainian effort.

This asymmetry between producers and payers creates internal tensions within the Alliance. Countries investing in industrial capacity — at the political and budgetary cost that entails — watch with growing frustration as countries that pay in rhetoric resist concrete commitments. The Ankara summit must, one way or another, reconcile these two categories — or confirm that tensions continue to escalate.

Defense industry is foreign policy made physical. When Poland builds an ammunition plant, it is not voting a resolution — it is staking out a position. That may be the most honest form of solidarity that exists in an Alliance where words cost less than shells.

What the summit will reveal about the state of the West

The Ankara summit of July 7 and 8, 2026 will be more than a budget meeting. It will be a barometer of the collective will of the West — without the United States as standard-bearer, with all its internal tensions on full display — to support Ukraine for the long term. The 2026 €70 billion proved that Europe could act without Washington. The question is whether it can sustain that action against the budgetary, political, and electoral pressures accumulating in member capitals.

Zelensky's Ukraine is waiting for numbers, not words. The soldiers holding the front in the Donbas and in the Izyum and Kharkiv regions depend on decisions made in air-conditioned rooms in Ankara. That is the reality of this war: allied policy has measurable effects on the ground, in ammunition, in air defense systems, in the capacity to resist. NATO has a responsibility — and Ankara is the opportunity to confirm it or to evade it.

The message to Moscow the Alliance must send

At its core, what the Ankara summit must produce is a clear message to Moscow: time does not belong to you. Putin built his strategy on the conviction that the West will tire before he does. Every confirmation of a long-term financial commitment is a direct refutation of that calculation. Every internal Alliance fracture, every ambiguity on 2027, every roadblock from Rome or Budapest reinforces the Russian thesis instead. NATO has a choice about the message it sends. It has a few days left to decide.

This Ankara summit may be the moment Europe decides whether it is a strategic power or a group of countries sharing a flag. I hold no certainty about the outcome. But I hold complete certainty that Ukraine deserves better than ambiguity — and that history will judge those who chose the comfort of vague language at the moment when clarity was necessary.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

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