PEACE campaigners today slammed this week’s Nato summit as having “no initiative for peace.”

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) said in a statement that the military alliance’s summit in Lithuanian capital Vilnius prioritised the continuation of its global expansion “while failing to take any initiative to bring the bloody war in Ukraine to a peaceful conclusion.”

This comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed pledges on Wednesday of even more weapons and ammunition to fight Russia along with fresh longer-term security commitments from the West.

Mr Zelensky said: “The Ukrainian delegation is bringing home a significant security victory for Ukraine, for our country, for our people, for our children.”

But CND said: “Nato is planning to further increase its influence in the Indo-Pacific, and is looking at how to expand its reach in the Middle East and Africa by the time of next year’s summit.

The peace campaigners called for all US nuclear weapons to be withdrawn from Europe and all Russian nuclear weapons to be withdrawn from Belarus. 

CND general secretary Kate Hudson said: “This summit makes a very bad global situation even worse. 

“Instead of pushing for peace, Nato is hell-bent on continuing the war in Ukraine, and dragging its member states’ economies into massive military-industrial escalation at the expense of their citizens’ welfare and the future of the planet.” 

Ms Hudson said: “CND calls on civil society to resist the militarisation of our societies and work for peace and disarmament — and a new concept of security based on equality, justice and meeting the needs of people and planet.”

Left-wing German MP Sevim Dagdelen told her country’s parliament on Wednesday that it was time to dissolve Nato, which she described as a “murderous military pact.”

She said: “After 78 years it is time for the US to withdraw its troops and nuclear weapons from Germany.”