NATO summit takes place against a backdrop of political upheavals - Patrick Mercer

But, any unity at the Washington conference will certainly be upset by other, political upheavals. France and Germany, the mainstays of both NATO and the EU are suddenly in political turmoil. In France, it looked at first as though President Macron’s government would be trounced by Marine Le Pen’s Ukraine-sceptic National Rally; instead the hard left’s rough tongued Jean-Luc Melenchon, whose support both for President Putin and Hamas is well known, has banded together with other, ultra-left parties and beaten National Rally back into third place.

The difficulty now is that no single party has a mandate and France’s government is gridlocked. More immediately, any plans hatched by President Macron to deploy French troops to Ukraine have been completely scuppered.

Meanwhile, the German defence minister, just as the conference started, bemoaned the real time cut in military spending which has been imposed upon him, driving a coach and horses through Germany’s claims that she’s increasing her assistance to Kiev.

This unexpected chaos has only been made worse by President Biden’s inchoate performance at his recent debate with Donald Trump. Unless Joe Biden stands down, it now seems highly likely that President Trump will replace him along with all his threats about NATO and promises about ending the fighting with Russia.

Trump’s stance on NATO remains hard nosed with the latest suggestion being that he would create a two-speed system, in which only countries that spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence would “enjoy the largess and security guarantee of the US”. He’s also said that he would end the fighting within 24 hours of becoming the President elect - even before he’s installed in the White House - with two of his advisors leaking a plan to cease military aid to Ukraine unless she agreed to hold peace negotiations with Russia.

Now, with President Zelensky having said often and loudly that he will never join any talks that are based upon territorial concessions from Kiev and President Trump hinting at just that, things are not promising. They’re made even worse by Mr Putin’s own suggestions that no talks can start before Ukrainian forces have not just withdrawn from east of the Dneiper, but also from Novorossiya - extensive lands well to the west of the river.

Whilst it’s often suggested that there’s some sort of covert link between Mr Trump and the Kremlin, it’s worth remembering that it was during the first Trump presidency that military aid to Kiev really began to flow. But, with Russia now having seized the initiative from a tottering Ukraine, don’t hold your breath for meek subservience from the Kremlin towards the new President.

Then look at what Viktor Orbán has done the moment that Hungary began her presidency of the EU Council. He’s visited Kiev, Moscow and then Beijing before garnering the following slap down from Donald Tusk, now PM of Poland and former president of the European Council.

President Orbán formed a group of “patriotic and sovereigntist parties” a few days ago when Marine Le Pen stood with him to create the Patriots for Europe Alliance which, along with 84 MEPs from 12 countries immediately became the third largest group in the EU parliament.

This, of course, is terribly difficult for both the EU and NATO, especially in the midst of a conference that is trying to present a united front whilst celebrating its 75th birthday. Suddenly the Hungarian disruptor and friend of Putin is not just flouting his NATO membership and presidency of the EU, but also sitting in judgement on Ukraine’s membership of both.

And remember what happened at the last summit in September 2023? Ukraine with Western help started an assault in June to pierce the Russian ‘land bridge’ to Crimea. Had it succeeded, it would have made a deep hole in Russian ambitions and it was timed to coincide with the NATO meeting.

Although there were some early successes, the assault failed completely: Kiev had done everything that was asked of her, but her obedience came at a cost of crippling casualties. Yet, despite the courage and tenacity of Mr Zelensky’s troops, he was met with the same vague promises of future NATO membership with the whole issue being cynically kicked into the long grass.

Patrick Mercer is a former MP for Newark and Army colonel.