NATO marks 75th birthday as Russia’s war in Ukraine gnaws at its unity

— NATO marked on Thursday 75 years of collective defense across Europe and North America, with its top diplomats vowing to stay the course in Ukraine as better-armed Russian troops assert control on the battlefield.

The anniversary comes as the now-32-nation alliance weighs a plan to provide more predictable longer-term military support to Ukraine. Plagued by ammunition shortages, Ukraine this week lowered the military conscription age from 27 to 25 in an effort to replenish its depleted ranks and appealed for additional aid defenses to counter increasing Russian ballistic missile attacks.

“I didn’t want to spoil the birthday party for NATO, but I felt compelled to deliver a sobering message on behalf of Ukrainians about the state of Russian air attacks on my country, destroying our energy system, our economy, killing civilians,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who attended a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council.

Kuleba thanked the allies for agreeing to begin identifying Patriot missile battery stocks that could be sent to Ukraine. The Patriot “is the only system that effectively intercepts ballistic missiles,” he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking before meeting with Kuleba, said that “support for Ukraine, the determination of every country represented here at NATO, remains rock solid.”

“We will do everything we can, allies will do everything that they can, to ensure that Ukraine has what it needs to continue to deal with Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, aggression that is getting worse with every passing day,” he said.

“The fight that Ukraine has on its hands is not only Ukraine’s fight, it’s everyone’s fight because the aggression being committed by Russia is not only an aggression against Ukraine and its people, it’s an aggression against the very principles that lie at the heart of the international system,” Blinken said.

The Ukraine meeting, which ran significantly beyond its scheduled time, was held after a ceremony to mark the day NATO’s founding treaty was signed: April 4, 1949, in Washington. A bigger celebration is planned when NATO leaders meet in Washington from July 9 to 11.

Hundreds of staffers filled the vast air terminal-like space at the center of NATO’s sprawling Brussels headquarters, while scores of others looked down from glassed walkways and stairways as Belgian and Dutch military bands played the NATO Hymn, the original Washington Treaty laid before them.