Defence minister João Gomes Cravinho has explained that a meeting of NATO in Brussels today highlighted the alliance’s “great unity and determination” over the war in Ukraine. The bottom line: it “Russia’s strategic failure has to be the result”. This is good news for Ukraine, he said, but of course bad news for the Kremlin. The reason for today’s statement appears to be ‘a warm up for the meeting next week in Brussels between heads of NATO states and governments’. By coincidence, it comes on the day the ICJ (International Court of Justice) ordered the immediate halt of Russia’s military invasion. As Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has tweeted: “The order is binding under international law. Russia must comply immediately. Ignoring the order will isolate Russia even further”. Of the 15 judges in the court, 13 voted in favour, the only judges voting against the motion being the Russian judge Kirill Gevorgian, and the Chinese judge Sue Hanqin.
