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NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is in Washington, D.C., today to meet with President Joe Biden, as the two work to assure the military alliance will have a united message on Ukraine at its upcoming summit in July.

Top of mind: Biden and Stoltenberg will discuss “Allies’ support for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s brutal war of aggression,” and review preparations for the gathering in Lithuania, the White House said in a statement last week.

Facing down divisions: The NATO meeting in Vilnius is set to test the bloc’s ability to send a cohesive message of support to Ukraine, even though they’re divided on “nearly every element” of how to respond to Ukraine’s request for security guarantees against Russia and its bid for NATO membership, European diplomats told POLITICO’s Lili Bayer.

Washington, which is NATO’s largest donor, has substantial sway in the direction of the bloc. That includes control over discussions for a two-part package of deliverables that NATO allies are in the process of preparing ahead of July’s summit.

One half includes practical support to help Ukraine’s military, while the other focuses on the thornier political question over what rhetoric to use to back Ukraine’s bid, according to U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith.

Stoltenberg said last month that Ukraine joining NATO during the war effort was “not on the agenda.” And Western governments including the U.S. and Germany are wary of any talk that might tilt the alliance closer to a direct confrontation with Russia.

Others say more speed is needed. “It is high time that we actually sit down and find a very concrete answer as to how Ukraine is going to move closer to NATO and when they become a member of the alliance,” said Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, per Reuters.

Monday’s meeting between Stoltenberg and Biden raises expectations for clarity over progress on discussions. And we may get further insight into how NATO countries are likely to frame their support for Ukraine on Tuesday when Stoltenberg and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken are scheduled to give joint statements in D.C., per NATO’s press release.

Kyiv has made its perspective on the matter clear.

“If we come to realize that [NATO] is not interested in us joining, and if no one will commit [security] guarantees — serious legal guarantees, not Budapest guarantees — to paper, then what’s the point of the meeting?” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week, per Ukrainska Pravda.

Stoltenberg, the former prime minister of Norway, has served as secretary general since 2014 and is credited with managing allies’ response to Russia. He was at the helm during several international crises including NATO’s withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in 2021, before announcing he would not seek another extension of his term in February.

Another likely topic of conversation: who will replace the outgoing secretary general? More on who’s in the running below.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Monday:

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen meets with the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as the EU and the Mercosur bloc push ahead with a trade deal that’s been in the making for decades.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish President Andrzej Duda meet with French president Emmanuel Macron in Paris. The leaders are expected to discuss Ukraine’s push for NATO membership ahead of next month’s summit.

Tuesday:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will visit China from June 13 to 16, after Beijing pledged to mediate talks between Israel and Palestine, according to China’s foreign ministry.

Wednesday:

The EU’s top envoys discuss a proposal for a new sanctions package on Russia, after failing to reach an agreement last week.

Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu will visit Europe for a security conference, and is expected to appear with Czech president Petr Pavel, a signal of the country’s lessening diplomatic isolation, per Reuters.

President of the U.N. General Assembly Csaba Kőrösi joins hundreds of diplomats and interfaith leaders in New York for the Forum for Building Bridges Between East and West. The conference aims to advance cross-faith dialogue and tolerance throughout the Middle East.

Thursday:

POLITICO hosts Global Tech Day in London, which will examine how the future of technology could affect policies and people on both sides of the Atlantic. Speakers include U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation for IT development, Oleksandr Bornyakov.

BERLUSCONI PASSES: Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister, has died aged 86, his office confirmed early Monday. Here’s what to know about the man who seduced a country, from my colleagues in Europe.

MONTENEGRO PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION: A coalition that advocates for Montenegro joining the EU is projected to win the Balkan country’s snap parliamentary election, but without enough support to form a government on its own, according to projections from the Center for Democratic Transition. Official results from Sunday’s vote will be announced by the state election commission in the coming days.

WHAT CHINA WANTS FROM PALESTINE:

Palestinian Authority President Abbas is kicking off a state visit to China on Tuesday, after Beijing vowed to help facilitate Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Abbas will be the “first Arab head of state received by China this year, fully embodying the high level of China-Palestine good relations, which have traditionally been friendly,” Chinese foreign ministry representative Wang Wenbin said on Friday.

Chinese state media has said the purpose of Abbas’s visit is to make progress around a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict.

But Palestinian officials told the Guardian that they see it more as Chinese President Xi Jinping showing himself as a global player and don’t expect much from the diplomacy. “This is about China showing its power and making the U.S. look weak,” one Palestinian official told the outlet.

The four-day stint by Abbas comes as the Biden administration focuses attention on the Indo-Pacific, prompting criticism that Washington is leaving a void in the Middle East.

Case in point: The visit comes months after Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to restore long-suspended ties after talks brokered by China. Middle East analysts said the move signaled a “changing diplomatic order.”

Still, U.S. making the rounds: During his trip to Saudi Arabia last week, Blinken said Riyadh was not being forced to choose between Washington and China, denying the region’s deepening ties with Beijing were an issue for the U.S. at a joint press conference in Riyadh.

WASHINGTON EYES MODI’S DEFENSE SECTOR:

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan will be in New Delhi this week, meeting with his counterpart Ajit Doval among other senior officials, per CNBC, ahead of next week’s White House visit by the Indian PM.

Biden will host Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House on June 22, in an effort to forge stronger military and industrial links with the South Asian country.

Modi’s visit to the U.S. capital comes after a rocky few years of relations between India and Washington. Modi has only offered tepid criticism over Moscow’s invasion into Ukraine, and has not joined Western sanctions against Russia.

Both sides are negotiating a deal that would allow General Electric to produce jet engines that power India’s military aircraft, which is expected to be signed on or before Modi’s official state visit.

India, which is the world’s largest arms importer, has angered Washington by increasing purchases of Moscow’s crude oil, blunting the impact of sanctions.

TRUDEAU’S TRIP: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a surprise visit to Ukraine over the weekend, where he met with Zelenskyy and pledged another 500 million Canadian dollars to the war effort. The show of solidarity comes at a pivotal moment for Kyiv, as Zelenskyy is busy appealing to world leaders for weapons and jets for the long-awaited counteroffensive.

LATEST CHINA-U.S. FLASHPOINT: A Biden administration official confirmed over the weekend that China has been using a secret base in Cuba to spy on Washington. The official added that the Chinese spying effort has been an ongoing concern and Washington was taking steps to deal with it, without going into details.

The development could complicate Blinken’s long-delayed trip to meet with officials in Beijing, now expected for Sunday, according to Reuters. The trip was finally reupped after being postponed after the discovery of a Chinese spy balloon above U.S. soil earlier this year.

MIGRANT FUNDS FOR TUNISIA: The EU is considering up to €900 million in macro-financial assistance to Tunisia, in return for better border control and measures against human smuggling, von der Leyen said on Sunday in a joint press conference with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte during a visit to Tunis.

THE STATE OF THE NATO SEC-GEN SWEEPSTAKES: A buzz of speculation is erupting over who will replace Stoltenberg, the long-serving NATO chief who announced he will not pursue another term.

All eyes are on Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who visited the White House last week for a meeting focused on supporting Ukraine, as well as energy security and climate change. She would be the first woman to take the critical post.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is also pushing for his preferred candidate, U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, to lead the NATO alliance. “We’re going to have to get a consensus within NATO to see that happen,” Biden said during a joint press conference Thursday, adding that the defense secretary minister was “very qualified” for the position.

The names of Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and her Lithuanian counterpart, Ingrida Šimonytė, have also been floated, per Reuters. But their more hawkish approach to Russia and close geographical proximity risks angering Moscow.

Whoever is chosen will be faced with the precarious task of managing the security of more than one billion people across 31 countries, while sustaining military support for Ukraine, and ensuring the conflict does not bleed into NATO territory.

JOHNSON QUITS PARLIAMENT: Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced he is quitting the House of Commons in protest after a series of scandals including an investigation into whether or not he lied to parliament about parties that breached pandemic lockdown rules. “Their purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts,” he said, adding — “It is very sad to be leaving Parliament — at least for now.”

MOVES

Romania recalled their ambassador to Kenya, Dragos Viorel Tigau after the foreign ministry was informed he had compared African diplomats to monkeys during a meeting in Nairobi.

U.K. conservative Nadine Dorries quit as MP after she was passed over for a peerage in Boris Johnson’s resignation honors, triggering a special election in British parliament.

BRAIN FOOD

Ukrainian forces achieved localized gains during counterattacks to the southwest and southeast of Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, per geolocation data shared by the Institute of the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project. Follow a visual demonstration of the counteroffensive here.

The race to detect AI can be won, per Jan Nicola Beyer, from Democracy Reporting International for POLITICO.

Thanks to editor Heidi Vogt and producer Sophie Gardner.

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