we're going to take a closer look at one of the most anticipated gatherings in years. in the next half hour, we'll examine what ukraine got out of the summit and what it didn't, and how that will affect the country's fight against russia. how the results of the nato summit will affect the bloc itself, especially now that sweden has been cleared for membership. and we want to get the view from other parts of the world, with a special focus on asia and africa. but first, here's a look at some of the key moments for this week's summit: president volodymyr zelensky, president of ukraine, welcome to you, it's great to have you here.

we will issue an invitation for ukraine tojoin nato when allies agree and when conditions are met. we owe it to the ukrainians, because they are fighting there so that the british, australians, americans don't have to fight with russia. translation: we are grateful to partners promising - new packages of security and defence. so how significant was this year's summit? for more on that i spoke with ivo daalder, former us ambassador to nato and now ceo of the chicago council on global affairs. i'm sure you are following this week's nato summit very closely, was the gathering in your mind a success? yes, i think it is very difficult to call it anything other than a success. a number of things are very important for the ukrainian audience, it was important that nato reaffirmed not only its commitment to help ukraine in every possible way to defend itself against this brutal invasion

that the russians launched, now more than 500 days ago, but also to not only open a door but to say that it is time for ukraine to think about stepping through that door. of membership. it said that the future of ukraine is in nato, president biden said ukraine willjoin nato, the question is not a matter anymore of whether, but of when. it was also significant because it sent a real important signal to russia. nato is stronger, it is more united, it is larger, all as a result of what vladimir putin did when he decided to launch this invasion. we have finland of course already as a member, sweden soon to be a member, and the 33rd member, ukraine, knocking on the door. (crosstalk). in terms of the message to russia, the door has been left open but there was no timeline provided ukraine to walk through it.

was that a strong enough message to russia? it is very important in many ways to think about not having a timeline. if you were to link ukrainian membership to, for example, an end of hostilities or the end of the war, you are going to give russia every excuse to continue fighting for as long as it takes. that was not done, so i think the timeline as president biden said as months, not years, we will have to see how the counteroffensive ukraine is now engaging in will evolve, but the idea is that by the end of the year we hope to be in a position which we have a very serious set of discussions with ukraine about how this war may either end or at least how negotiations may be started, and nato membership is a fundamental part of that. it is, after all, the prospect of nato membership that russia feels the ukrainians want, that gives us leveraged about how these negotiations will go.

if i were vladimir putin i would not be happy about what happened vilnius this week. a couple of new members of course, finland being the newest member of the bloc and now sweden having its membership cleared, what is the significance of this expansion into those nordic countries for nato? it is very significant in two ways. the baltic sea is becoming a nato lake, it bottles up the baltic sea fleet in saint petersburg and kaliningrad that the russians have, it is very difficult for russians to now think about using the baltic as part of a military domain that it can control, let alone dominate. and in the arctic, way up north, there are eight arctic nations, seven of those will, with sweden joining, be nato members and only russia being the non— nato member. so that is important, and finally of course, with finland having joined nato, more than half, it has doubled the border region between nato and russia that existed before the war.

that is significant, because remember, this war was started by vladimir putin. ostensibly because he thought nato was coming too close to its borders. as a result of his actions, the brutality of the russian forces, finland is now closer, it is in nato and nato has come closer to russia than ever before. i want to zoom back out now to 2008, and that is also ukraine back then was asking for membership to nato, it didn't get the clear timeline, doesn't get one now either. do you think it was a missed opportunity many years ago to not provide that timeline for ukraine, and could that have potentially prevented a larger conflict? i think looking back it is pretty clear that if ukraine had been a member of nato, what happened on 2a february 2022 would not have happened. after all, russia has not attacked nato, it has attacked the country that was explicitly excluded from nato. so i think the lessons, certainly the swedes learned

that, the ukrainians already knew that but they are learning it now with incredible courage and shedding blood on the battlefield, is that safety is being part of nato, which is why it is so important but in contrast to,000 eight, which is why it is so important but in contrast to 2008, when there was no consensus on the question of ukraine joining nato, after vilnius there is not a country that does not believe ukraine should be part of nato. that is a big change are not only something ukraine can take to the bank but frankly, vladimir putin has to be worried about. ivo daalder, former us ambassador to nato and ceo of the chicago council on global affairs, thank you very much. the importance of membership is a reminder of how far nato has come. it started as a small military alliance in the 1940s and became one of the world's most powerful defense

organizations of the 21st century. president truman signed the charter that puts the proclamation into effect. nato was founded in the years following world war ii to counter the soviet union's growing military might. 0riginally there were 12 countries from europe and north america. a few othersjoined in the decades to come. by the late 1980s, nato was made up of these countries — that's the 12 founding members, plus greece, turkey, germany and spain. in the late 1990s there was a post cold war enlargement. that included countries like poland, romania, and slovakia, among others. earlier this year, finland joined the bloc. and this week turkey backed sweden's membership, setting the stage for the nordic nation to enter the group. ukraine pushed hard this week for a timetable for its own entry. it got reassurances that membership will happen, but only, as we've heard, when certain �*conditions are met�*. max boot of the council on foreign relations,

wrote about this in the washington post. i spoke to him earlier. max, thank you forjoining us. i want to start with a recent column you wrote for the washington post. the title was" ukraine in nato: my heart says yes, my head says no". how your head and heart feeling after watching this nato summit this week? i'm feeling pretty good, i think even president zelensky based on what he said is feeling ok, i think the outcome is the best you can hope for, which is that ukraine gets to draw closer to nato, there is a new ukraine nato council, the possibility of ukraine joining nato at some point in the future is out there and it will be easier than it would have been in the past, but nato was not setting a timeline, was not admitting ukraine anytime soon, which makes because nato countries do not want to become party to a wall with a nuclear armed state like russia. i think what they are doing however is getting a lot

of support, a lot of weapons and training to ukraine, so it can fight for its own freedom and i think that is only going to be strengthened after the summit. we recently put your column to the former deputy assistant secretary of defence for europe and nato policy, he actually strongly disagreed with what you wrote, here is what he said. max is a brilliant guy but in this case i think he is fundamentally wrong. the lesson we have learned over the last three decades is countries that aren't in nato tend to get attacked by russia. we have left ukraine for too long in a grey zone of european security, grey zones attract violence and aggression. what is your response to his comments? i basically agree with what he is saying, in fact it is true that countries that are not in nato like georgia or ukraine, d10 get attacked by russia, whereas countries that are in nato, like poland and the baltic republics don't get attacked by russia, i think that is absolutely true. the problem is, how do

you get ukraine into nato while it is in the middle of a war with russia, and if it were to join anytime soon, it could invoke article five, the collective defence provision, you could argue that 0k, article five doesn't prescribe any specific cause of action, all it says is that an attack on one i like is an attack on them all. the allies would take well, we are carrying out article five by providing weapons and training and intelligence to ukraine. the problem with that is, there has been an assumption that if russia or some other outside power actually does attack one of the nato allies, the other nato allies would do more than say "here is a weapons you can defend yourselves with", the other nato allies would actually say here are our troops and we will go to your defence. that is especially vital in the case of the baltic republic and other countries who are much too weak to stop an onslaught. they do not want to send a signal that

article five may not mean other nato countries will not come and fight. if we are not going to fight for ukraine anytime soon there no real desire on the part of the us or europe to do that, we cannot admit ukraine into nato anytime soon. it president biden this week said" putin has already lost the war". is he right? to some extent i think president biden is right because remember, putin was my goal in invading ukraine was to destroy ukrainian sovereignty, he hoped his forces would be in kyiv within a week. instead what happened over the last year and a half is that while the russians have managed to occupy about 20% of ukrainian territory, they have also caused a massive counter reaction where ukrainian statehood, ukrainian nationalism is stronger than ever and ukraine is roosting far more successfully than anybody could have anticipated.

right now all the questions are about how successful will be ukrainian counteroffensive be, and that is an open question... ijust want to jump in here because i want to get to one last question about the former president donald trump. there has been some concern raised especially on the side of the french president emmanuel macron about a potential second trump administration. how prepared do you think european and nato allies are for a second trump administration? i don't think there is any way to prepare for a second trump administration because i think it would be a catastrophe for american democracy and for america's allies, and would probably mean the abandonment of ukraine. that is something i hope will not occur, because we are seeing nato stronger than ever right now, and a lot of that is due i think to the leadership of president biden that has provided, whereas if trump were in office he would not

be supporting ukraine, he would not be supporting our nato allies, he would probably be kowtowing to putin as he was five years ago in helsinki, the very city that president biden visited this last week. max boot, seniorfellow for national security studies at the council on foreign relations, thank you for your time. us presidentjoe biden walked a bit of a tightrope during his time in lithuania. he hoped to show support for ukraine, but not push too hard to avoid potentially provoking moscow or political opponents back here in washingotn. but speaking to students in vilnius, his message was clear. we will not waver. we will not waver! cheering i mean that. our commitment to ukraine will not weaken. we will stand for liberty and freedom today, tomorrow, and for as long as it takes! a short time ago my colleague sumi somaskanda spoke to matt miller, the us state department spokesperson about america's

commitment to ukraine. thank you forjoining us on the programme. i want ask about the nato summit that just took place in vilnius, with president biden saying before he left vilnius that the ukrainian president zelensky understands that whether or not he is in nato is not relevant now as long as he has the commitments and he is speaking about the security guarantees, as you know, agreed to at the summit. but ukraine has made very clear that it does want nato membership, certainly down the line, to prevent russia from attacking again, so can these security guarantees actually deter russia? let me start by saying we fully expect that ukraine will become a member of nato, and you saw nato make that very clear in their communique issued in this summit. the only question now is a matter of timing. we said we don't believe — for the united states's behalf - that it— should be a while ukraine remains at war with russia. that would put the united states instantly in a war with russia and you see easily how that would escalate

into full—scale conflict that i don't think anyone in the world wants. at the same time, we want to do two things. one — continue the assistance we have been providing since even before the onset of the full—scale invasion some but two — and this is the important thing that came out of this week — make clear to ukraine we are there for them in the long term and when i say "we", i don'tjust mean the united states but members of the g7 and other countries who signed onto a statement the g7 issued this week to make sure that we aren't just preparing ukraine to defend itself in the short term but that they have the long—term capability to build their defence capabilities, so that russia gets the message that the united states isn't going anywhere, the g7 isn't going anywhere, nato isn't going anywhere and we will continue to stand by ukraine. so, if vladimir putin is thinking about whether he can outlast the west, we are making very clear that the answer to that question is no. so what vladimir putin said this week after the nato summit in speaking to journalists is the following, quote — "i'm sure this will not increase the security "of ukraine itself

and in general will make "the world is much more vulnerable and lead "to additional tension in the international arena". so, is this promise of nato membership at some point down the road actually going to lead to heightened tensions? i don't think anyone should be looking to vladimir putin for any— signals about what will increase the security of ukraine. i will say that one of the things before the outset of the war that putin made public demands about repeatedly was that he did not want to see ukraine enter nato. we, before the outset of the conflict, made clear to vladimir putin that we were willing to enter about legitimate european security questions, that nato's open door policy would remain, that it was up to nato and ukraine to decide that question, but if he had legitimate security concerns, we were happy to enter into discussions about those and putin made clear from day one he had no interest in real discussions, he wanted to invade ukraine because he wanted to engage in a campaign of territorial acquisition to erase ukraine from the map and capture ukrainian territory.

he failed in that goal, as the president said this week. he continues, however, to rain death and destruction upon ukraine so i don't think we need to listen to lectures from vladimir putin about what will increase the security of ukraine. we know what will increase the security of ukraine and that's making sure they have what they need to defend themselves in the short term and deter russian aggression in the long—term. matt miller from the us state department. now, nato itself may have involved only around 30 specific nations but this gathering was watched by nations around the globe because what happens in vilnius doesn't necessarily stay in vilnius. the impact of the summit on the war in ukraine will be watched by leaders in africa. many nations there have remained steadfastly neutral in the conflict. and for the second time, asian nations were represented at the nato summit — the leaders ofjapan, south korea, australia and new zealand all participated in the gathering. earlier, i spoke with ambassadorj peter pham, distinguished fellow with the atlantic council's africa center, and mirna galic, senior policy

analyst, china and east asia at the us institute of peace. thank you so much for joining us for what's been an interesting week. we just want to start with you, mirna. because these four leaders of the asia—pacific countries were at the summit — japan, south korea, australia, and new zealand. what were they hoping to achieve? so, it's quite interesting because these countries had relations with nato for a number of years, going back to the early 2000s at least, and originally, some of the impetus for these countries wanting relations with nato were very basic things like interoperability with nato nations, addressing problems that span geographic borders like cyber attacks, maritime security, non—proliferation, etc. over the past dozen years oir so, there have been changes in international system

in terms of the return of strategic competition between the us and china and us and russia, and we've also seen a growing relationship between russia and china and since the ukrainian war, the undermining of the rules—based international order and that puts a new context on relations between nato and these four countries. these four countries care deeply about the rules—based international order, they want to work with nato to protect it and are quite interested in a growing dynamic both they and european partners recognise which is the sort of effects that security implications in one region have on the other, that both are starting to recognise. presumably, china was also watching closely as the nato summit took place. indeed. how do you think china sees nato's growing influence in the region? so, china has been quite robustly expressful about its distaste for nato's growing relations with its partners in the region. but i think it's important to point out that nato has had interests in the region for many, many years before nato even started focusing on china as a security challenge, so nato has had operations in the region, it had a number

of counter—piracy organisations between 2008 and 2016 in the indian ocean, nato has had these partners for many years in the region, as i've mentioned, so nato's presence — not presence because nato is not physically present — but nato's engagement in the region has long preceded nato's focus on china, so i think it is important to point that out. now, china is unhappy, ithink, in many parts because china is unhappy about the strengthening of us alliances in general — both us alliances in the region with us partners there and us alliances elsewhere because china sees this as inherently sort of anti—china, so that's where a lot of china's distaste for what's happening between nato and these partners come from. let's talk about africa now, and ambassador pham, i want to turn to you. nato has partnered with the african union for two almost decades now but there are many african nations that have remained neutral in the conflict. why is that and just talk, again, about the relationship nato has with the continent in general? well, nato has a very deep relationship with the continent

and perhaps not well known but since the early 20005, nato has had support given to african union security efforts on the continent. first in sudan and then formal agreements to provide airlift and sealift to african union peacekeeping operations in somalia. there's been, since 2014, a formal agreement between the african union and nato to have a nato office at the african union, headed by a senior military officer and a deputy, to co—ordinate that relationship and since the warsaw summit in 2016, there has been a formal memorandum of understanding between the african union and nato. how surprised are you, then, to see so many — at least 13, i believe, in the latest un vote — remain very neutral in this conflict? well, i think individual african countries have their ow interests. i think most notable among them is probably south africa

which, for a variety of reasons, ranging from the pedestrian — the biggest donor to the african national congress, the ruling party, is a sanctioned russian oligarch — to historic ties from the liberation struggle days, perhaps a little exaggerated, and other interests, but that's very particular to specific countries. if you look at africa as a whole, nato has a deep relationship and nato countries do — in fact, more than half the african union's budget is paid for by nato members. looking at south korea and japan, what would any stronger ties actually look like? how would that work? again, it's more about deepening existing ties and for these partners, both japan and korea announced at the summit that they'd signed new partnership agreements with nato. these are called the individually tailored partnership programme. they're a sort of deeper, more comprehensive partnership document than they've had with nato before. a lot of it is about increasing

practical cooperation in certain areas, like emerging and disruptive technologies like cyber and space. so, i think if you see an increase in these relationships, it'll be a deepening and broadening maybe of the types of focus that these relationship have. i want to ask you both, and starting with you, ambassador pham, many of these nations in africa and in asia have close economic ties with russia and china. how difficult of a balancing act is that? well, it's, undoubtedly, they've been impacted by the war. exports of grain, of cooking oil, of energy — all these prices have gone up and certainly, african countries have been on the forefront of being impacted by that and the effects of the russian invasion. 0n the other hand, the trade ties beyond that are actually much deeper with the west and the countries of nato. for example, throughout africa the biggest trading bloc, if you think about it, is western europe and the united states. china may be the individual

nation with which individual african countries may have the most debt or most individual trade but very closely behind and cumulatively, the united states, canada and europe and certainly, our alliesjapan, south korea, and others are very closely behind. mirna, 20 seconds, similar situation in asia? similar. china is the biggest trading partner of all four of nato's indo—pacific partner countries and so i think they are also conscious of the need to maintain economic relations but i think at the same time, they are doing some de—risking of their own in terms of making sure their trade is more diversified and trying to balance that relationship with the security side. mirna galic, senior policy analyst, china and east asia. ambassadorj peter pham, distinguished fellow at the atlantic council's africa center. thank you so much to you, both. that brings us to the end of this bbc nato special. we want to leave you with some images from vilnius, a meeting that made more headlines than most. beyond the handshakes,

there were some big developments with the confirmation of a future member, sweden, and another nation, ukraine, with a longer path ahead. meanwhile, the conflict with russia continues. no—one can predict if that will still be the case when nato nations meet again next year, right here in washington, dc, for the bloc�*s 75th anniversary. i'm carl nasman. thank you for watching. hello there. i think it's fair to say that the weather doesn't look and feel much like summer at the moment. these were some pictures taken on friday. it was particularly windy in the south—west of england and we actually had more rain in cornwall on friday than fell during the whole of last month, and we had rain far and wide across the uk as well. that rain has been working its way northwards on that weather front there, which is wrapped around an area of low pressure, and that will dominate the weather through the rest of the weekend. now, the rain, by saturday

morning, is in the far north of scotland. temperatures 12—14 degrees. some showers already arriving and we'll see more of those as the winds pick up, particularly across england and wales, with the strongest of the winds in the south. a0 mph gusts, quite widely, maybe a bit stronger, especially around some coastal areas. and it could bring some damage and some disruption, especially as those downpours arrive. and we'll see these showers breaking out more widely through the day. some wetter weather, particularly for wales and western parts of england. thunderstorms almost anywhere. some heavy showers arriving in scotland and northern ireland, where it's not going to be quite so windy here, but temperatures are still a bit disappointing, really, for the time of year. we're likely to find 18 or 19 widely. a touch warmer in the south—east, where there shouldn't be as many showers in the afternoon. the low pressure itself is continuing to push northwards. it may take away the worst of the weather for sunday. although, having said that, it could be a bit windier than saturday for scotland and northern ireland and we've got some showers here, some of them heavy, maybe some

longer spells of rain. but not quite so windy on sunday for england and wales. there may be a bit more sunshine around but there's still the chance of some showers, too. even though there aren't as many showers around, we've still got those temperatures peaking at only 20 or 21 celsius in the afternoon. now, looking ahead to next week and some changes on the way. it's not going to be quite as windy next week. there may be a bit more sunshine around and fewer showers but we're not going to get any of the heat that's affecting southern parts of europe — you may be pleased about that. 22 or 23 degrees the top temperature, probably, over next week. it's going to be much hotter across southern parts of europe. temperatures not quite so high around coastal areas but it will be especially hot as you head inland.

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