NATO Head Sees ‘Strong Message’ on Ukraine’s Membership Bid at Summit 

A NATO flag stands on the day of a NATO leaders summit in Vilnius, Lithuania July 11, 2023. (Reuters)
A NATO flag stands on the day of a NATO leaders summit in Vilnius, Lithuania July 11, 2023. (Reuters)
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NATO Head Sees ‘Strong Message’ on Ukraine’s Membership Bid at Summit 

A NATO flag stands on the day of a NATO leaders summit in Vilnius, Lithuania July 11, 2023. (Reuters)
A NATO flag stands on the day of a NATO leaders summit in Vilnius, Lithuania July 11, 2023. (Reuters)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Ukraine would get a "positive and strong message" on its path to membership on Tuesday, as leaders of the Western military alliance meet to discuss the fallout from Russia's invasion that brought war to their doorstep.

Divisions among NATO's 31 members mean there will not be a straightforward invitation for Ukraine to join, something its Soviet-era overlord Moscow says would threaten its national security.

But Stoltenberg said Kyiv would get more military aid and an easing of formal conditions to join, as well as a new format of cooperation with the alliance, the so-called NATO-Ukraine Council.

"I am confident it will be a positive and strong message on Ukraine and the path forward for membership," Stoltenberg said before hosting a summit in the Lithuanian capital.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan also said the gathering would send a "positive signal" about Kyiv's membership bid. Diplomats were upbeat as negotiators were drawing close on the final agreement.

US President Joe Biden, speaking alongside Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, whose country in extremely wary of consequences of Russia's war in Ukraine for eastern Europe, reaffirmed Washington's commitment to the alliance.

"Our pledge to be with you has not wavered," he said.

The summit is also set to approve NATO's first comprehensive plans since the end of the Cold War to defend against any attack from Russia.

Moscow has criticized the two-day summit. Russia's state RIA news agency quoted a Vienna-based senior Russian diplomat as warning that Europe would be the first to face "catastrophic consequences" should the war in Ukraine escalate.

While NATO members agree Kyiv cannot join during the war, they have disagreed over how quickly it could happen afterwards and under what conditions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, due to attend the Vilnius gathering, has been pressing NATO for a clear path for Ukraine to join once the war is over. On Tuesday, he said Ukrainian troops were keeping Russian aggression from Europe.

"The eastern border of Ukraine, the border of our state and the positions of our warriors are the line that the Russian dictatorship... will never cross again," he said on Twitter.

Ukraine waits, Sweden on its way in

NATO members in Eastern Europe have backed Kyiv's stance, arguing that bringing Ukraine under NATO's collective security umbrella is the best way to deter Russia from attacking again.

Countries such as the United States and Germany have been more cautious, wary of any move that they fear could draw NATO into a direct conflict with Russia and potentially spark a global war.

NATO was formed in 1949 with the primary aim of countering the risk of a Soviet attack on allied territory.

The NATO-Ukraine Council, due to hold its first session in Vilnius on Wednesday, is not dissimilar from a coordination platform NATO had with Russia from 2002. That stopped after Moscow annexed Crimea from Kyiv in 2014 and then went on to back rebel fighters in eastern Ukraine.

Stoltenberg said Ukraine could now skip a Membership Action Plan (MAP) - a process for meeting political, economic and military goals before becoming a NATO member.

Lithuania's NATO ambassador said the summit would commit 500 million euros a year in non-lethal help to Ukraine, including medical supplies and de-mining. Norway said it would increase military aid to Kyiv.

"It's important that they win. It's important for our common security," Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt told Reuters.

While Ukraine was set to be kept waiting, another country seemingly secured a breakthrough on its path to NATO membership.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan late on Monday agreed to forward Sweden's bid to join to his parliament for ratification, appearing to end months of opposition that strained the bloc.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was what prompted Sweden - and its Nordic neighbor Finland - to abandon decades of military non-alignment and apply to join NATO.

Finland became NATO's 31st member in April but Sweden's accession has been held up by a dispute with Türkiye, where Erdogan had accused Sweden of not doing enough to crack down on militants that Ankara sees as terrorists.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Erdogan agreed to step up cooperation on fighting terrorism. The United States also promised to move forward with the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Türkiye, Sullivan said.

Biden said he was "not at all" surprised Türkiye ended up lifting its veto.

Back in Kyiv, Ukraine's military said Russia launched drone attacks on the southern port of Odessa and the country's capital itself in early hours on Tuesday.



Death Toll from Catastrophic Flooding in Texas over the July Fourth Weekend Surpasses 100

 A portion of Highway 1340 is covered by the Guadalupe River in the aftermath of deadly flooding in Kerr County, Texas, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
A portion of Highway 1340 is covered by the Guadalupe River in the aftermath of deadly flooding in Kerr County, Texas, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
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Death Toll from Catastrophic Flooding in Texas over the July Fourth Weekend Surpasses 100

 A portion of Highway 1340 is covered by the Guadalupe River in the aftermath of deadly flooding in Kerr County, Texas, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
A portion of Highway 1340 is covered by the Guadalupe River in the aftermath of deadly flooding in Kerr County, Texas, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)

The death toll from catastrophic flooding in Texas over the July Fourth weekend surpassed 100 on Monday as search-and-rescue teams continued to wade into swollen rivers and use heavy equipment to untangle trees as part of the massive search for missing people.

Authorities overseeing the search for flood victims said they will wait to address questions about weather warnings and why some summer camps did not evacuate ahead of the flooding that killed at least 104.

The officials spoke only hours after the operators of Camp Mystic, a century-old all-girls Christian summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, announced that they lost 27 campers and counselors to the floodwaters. Kerr County officials said 10 campers and one counselor were still unaccounted for Monday.

Searchers have found the bodies of 84 people, including 28 children, in the county home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, officials said.

With additional rain on the way, more flooding still threatened saturated parts of central Texas. Authorities said the death toll was sure to rise.

The raging flash floods, among the nation’s worst in decades, slammed into camps and homes along the edge of the Guadalupe River before daybreak Friday, pulling sleeping people out of their cabins, tents and trailers and dragging them for miles past floating tree trunks and cars. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.

Piles of twisted trees sprinkled with mattresses, refrigerators and coolers littered the riverbanks Monday. The debris included reminders of what drew so many to the campgrounds and cabins in the Hill Country — a volleyball, canoes and a family portrait.

Nineteen deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, local officials said.

Among those confirmed dead were 8-year-old sisters from Dallas who were at Camp Mystic and a former soccer coach and his wife who were staying at a riverfront home. Their daughters were still missing.

Calls for finding why warnings weren't heard

Authorities vowed that one of the next steps would be investigating whether enough warnings were issued and why some camps did not evacuate or move to higher ground in a place long vulnerable to flooding that some local residents refer to as “flash flood alley.”

That will include a review of how weather warnings were sent out and received. One of the challenges is that many camps and cabins are in places with poor cellphone service, Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said.

“We definitely want to dive in and look at all those things,” he said. “We’re looking forward to doing that once we can get the search and rescue complete.”

Some camps were aware of the dangers and monitoring the weather. At least one moved several hundred campers to higher ground before the floods.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said recent government spending cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Weather Service did not delay any warnings.

“There’s a time to have political fights, there’s a time to disagree. This is not that time,” Cruz said. “There will be a time to find out what could been done differently. My hope is in time we learn some lessons to implement the next time there is a flood.”

The weather service first advised of potential flooding on Thursday and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare step that alerts the public to imminent danger.

Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months of rain. Some residents said they never received any warnings.

President Donald Trump, who signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County and plans to visit the area, said Sunday that he does not plan to rehire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year.

“This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it,” the president said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said local and federal weather services provided sufficient warnings.

“That was an act of God. It’s not the administration’s fault that the flood hit when it did, but there were early and consistent warnings,” Leavitt said.

More than three dozen people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing, Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday.

Search-and-rescue crews at one staging area said Monday that more than 1,000 volunteers had been directed to Kerr County.

Little time to escape floods

Reagan Brown said his parents, in their 80s, managed to escape uphill as water inundated their home in the town of Hunt. When the couple learned that their 92-year-old neighbor was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued her.

“Then they were able to reach their tool shed up higher ground, and neighbors throughout the early morning began to show up at their tool shed, and they all rode it out together,” Brown said.

Elizabeth Lester, a mother of children who were at Camp Mystic and nearby Camp La Junta during the flood, said her young son had to swim out his cabin window to escape. Her daughter fled up the hillside as floodwaters whipped against her legs.