The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states, of which 28 are in Europe and the other 2 in North America. Established in the aftermath of World War II, the organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty, signed on 4 April 1949.
The North Atlantic Treaty, also referred to as the Washington Treaty, is the treaty that forms the legal basis of, and is implemented by, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949.
Jens Stoltenberg is a Norwegian politician serving as the 13th secretary general of NATO since 2014. A member of the Labour Party, he previously served as the 34th prime minister of Norway from 2000 to 2001 and again from 2005 until 2013 and governor of central bank of Norway. Stoltenberg was the director of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization from 2002 to 2005.
The Group of Seven (G7) is an inter-governmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition, the European Union is a 'non-enumerated member'. Its members are the world's largest IMF advanced economies and wealthiest liberal democracies; the group is officially organized around shared values of pluralism and representative government. As of 2020, the collective group accounts for a little over 50 percent of global net wealth, 32 to 46 percent of global gross domestic product, and about 770 million people or 10 percent of the world's population. Most members are great powers in global affairs and maintain mutually close political, economic, social, legal, environmental, military, religious, cultural, and diplomatic relations. Since the start of 2022, Germany has taken over the rotating presidency of the G7.
The 2008 Bucharest Summit or the 20th NATO Summit was a NATO summit organized in the Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest, Romania on 2 – 4 April 2008.
The 2004 Istanbul summit was held in Istanbul, Turkey from 28 to 29 June 2004. It was the 17th NATO summit in which NATO's Heads of State and Governments met to make formal decisions about security topics. In general, the summit is seen as a continuation of the transformation process that began in the 2002 Prague summit, which hoped to create a shift from a Cold War alliance against Soviet aggression to a 21st-century coalition against new and out-of-area security threats. The summit consisted of four meetings.
NATO is a military alliance of twenty-eight European and two North American countries that constitutes a system of collective defense. The process of joining the alliance is governed by Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which allows for the invitation of "other European States" only, and by subsequent agreements. Countries wishing to join must meet certain requirements and complete a multi-step process involving political dialogue and military integration. The accession process is overseen by the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body.
Relations between Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) started in 1992. Ukraine applied to integrate with a NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) in 2008. Plans for NATO membership were shelved by Ukraine following the 2010 presidential election in which Viktor Yanukovych, who preferred to keep the country non-aligned, was elected President. Amid the Euromaidan unrest, Yanukovych fled Ukraine in February 2014. The interim Yatseniuk Government which came to power initially said, with reference to the country's non-aligned status, that it had no plans to join NATO. However, following the Russian military invasion in Ukraine and parliamentary elections in October 2014, the new government made joining NATO a priority. On 21 February 2019, the Constitution of Ukraine was amended, the norms on the strategic course of Ukraine for membership in the European Union and NATO are enshrined in the preamble of the Basic Law, three articles and transitional provisions.
Relations between the NATO military alliance and the Russian Federation were established in 1991 within the framework of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. In 1994, Russia joined the Partnership for Peace program, and through the early-2010s, NATO and Russia signed several additional agreements on cooperation.
The 40th G7 summit was held 4–5 June, 2014 in Brussels, Belgium. It was originally scheduled to be held as the “40th G8 summit” and be hosted by Russia in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. However, the other seven countries decided on 24 March that the summit would be instead held without Russia in Brussels.
The 2014 Wales Summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was a meeting of the heads of state and heads of government of the NATO countries, held in Newport, Wales on 4 and 5 September 2014. Such summits are sporadically held, and allow leaders and officials from NATO Allies to discuss current issues of mutual concern and to plan strategic activities. The 2014 summit has been described by US Navy Admiral James G. Stavridis as the most important since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy, also transliterated as Zelensky, is a Ukrainian politician who is the sixth and current president of Ukraine. Zelenskyy is a former actor and comedian.
The 48th G7 summit is scheduled to be held from 26 to 28 June 2022 in Schloss Elmau, Bavarian Alps, Germany. Germany previously hosted a G7 summit in 2015 at Schloss Elmau, Bavaria.
In March and April 2021, Russian Armed Forces began massing thousands of personnel and military equipment near Russia's border with Ukraine and in Crimea, representing the largest mobilization since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. This precipitated an international crisis due to concerns over a potential invasion. Satellite imagery showed movements of armour, missiles, and heavy weaponry. The troops were partially withdrawn by June 2021, though the infrastructure was left in place. A second build-up began in October 2021, this time with greater numbers of soldiers and with deployments on new fronts; by December over 100,000 Russian troops were massed around Ukraine on three sides. Despite the Russian military build-ups, Russian officials from November 2021 to 20 February 2022 repeatedly denied that Russia had plans to invade Ukraine.
Events in the year 2022 in Ukraine.
Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, marking a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014 following the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity. The invasion has triggered Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II, with more than 4.8 million Ukrainians leaving the country and a quarter of the population displaced.
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine received widespread international condemnation, including new sanctions imposed on Russia, which triggered a Russian financial crisis. Reactions among governments worldwide have generally been critical and negative concerning the invasion by Russia, with outspoken criticism and condemnation made by many leading nations such as the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, Japan and the EU. International organizations such as the UN and NATO have also voiced significant criticism of the invasion as being unjustified and without justifiable precedent. From the early phases of the invasion, the United Nations General Assembly voted to condemn Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
Allegations of Genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is a case brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principle judicial organ of the United Nations. It was submitted by Ukraine on February 26, 2022 against Russia following the latter's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which Russia sought to justify in part by unsubstantiated claims that Ukraine was engaged in acts of genocide within the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Ukraine said that these claims gave rise to a dispute under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and based its application on the ICJ's jurisdiction to resolve disputes involving the Convention. On 16 March 2022, the court ruled that Russia must "immediately suspend the military operations" in Ukraine, while waiting for the final decision on the case.
The 2022 Madrid summit is a planned future meeting of the heads of state and heads of government of NATO member countries to be held in Madrid, Spain, on 29–30 June 2022.
The 2022 NATO virtual summit was a meeting of the heads of state and heads of government of NATO held virtually, on 25 February 2022. The meeting took place at the request of the Latvian and Estonian governments, following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which had begun a day earlier. The request was pursuant to Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which requires consultations when "the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened."
