Large sections of downtown closed off for NATO: What you need to know
DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) — The NATO Village is fully in place as the Parliamentary Assembly begins meaning a large section of downtown is inaccessible to those without security access.
Several roads are closed off to encompass the security zone, with a heavy law enforcement presence in the vicinity along with barricades and metal fences.
Downtown road closures, security measures announced for NATO 2025
Impacted roads include parts of East Monument Avenue, North Jefferson Street, West First Street, North Ludlow Street and West Third Street.
Roads will be closed until the NATO Assembly ends on Monday, May 26.
Local law enforcement is stressing safety throughout the weekend. Officials are encouraging residents to pay attention when driving through areas with blockades as well as being aware of pedestrian traffic.
Dayton leaders are anticipating many visitors on foot who will be walking near these roads from Thursday through Monday, so it is important to watch out for those people in those areas closest to the perimeter of the NATO Village.
When driving through the area at night, police are still asking for you to drive with caution and be aware of any overnight work that may be happening in the security zone.
These barricades will stay up throughout the night in the NATO Village, so people will be unable to pass through overnight without the proper NATO clearance.
Officials expect the downtown area to be cleared and back to normal by next Wednesday, May 28.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
NATO Offers to Tweak 5% Spending Goal to Win Spanish Approval
NATO has offered to tweak key language on ambitious defense spending targets to help win support from holdout Spain, before leaders of the military alliance gather on Tuesday. The draft statement to be adopted at the June 24-25 summit will be changed to 'allies' commit to spending 5% of GDP on defense from 'we' commit, according to people familiar with the talks.
Business Insider
2 hours ago
- Business Insider
NATO ships are at rising risk. Top commanders tell BI it's time to rethink naval defense.
NATO warships are sailing into a dangerous new era of naval warfare in which the threats are growing fast, two senior alliance commanders recently told Business Insider. From the Black Sea to the Red Sea, the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have exposed key vulnerabilities and shown NATO what its naval forces need to operate in risky environments. Dangers to warships these days include threats like hostile drones, missiles, and other naval vessels, capabilities built on rapidly advancing combat technology. So what does NATO need? Layered defenses, cheaper ways to destroy enemy threats, and deeper ammunition stockpiles. Vice Adm. James Morley, the deputy commander of NATO's Joint Force Command Norfolk, told BI that Ukraine and the Red Sea "have revealed the need to be ready to deal with a higher level of intensity than we had previously scaled for, both in terms of stock and in terms of time on the front line." In the Black Sea, Ukrainian forces have repeatedly used domestically produced naval drones to damage and destroy Russian warships, showing the risks that relatively cheap, asymmetric combat solutions pose to conventional naval forces. Far away, at the southern end of the Red Sea, the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have launched missiles and drones at merchant vessels and NATO warships defending international shipping lanes. In its efforts to fend off the Houthi attacks, the US Navy has faced its most intense combat since World War II, US officials have previously said. Morley said NATO warships are at a higher risk because of the number of global actors who are prepared to use military force. Weapons proliferation has given actors who might previously have been unable to threaten advanced navies a new ability to do so. In the case of the Houthis, for instance, the group's missile attacks have raised the level of danger in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to a level not seen in years. The situation is different in Europe, where NATO warships have not been shot at but tensions are running high. There have been several incidents with Moscow that raise the level of risk. 'The mindset needs to be layered defense' Surface warships face an expanding range of threats, from anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles and torpedoes to enemy aircraft and drones. Some weapons now in play only recently saw combat for the first time. The high operational tempo in the Red Sea has informed Western military planners about what limitations they face regarding magazine capacity, weapons inventory, and reloading capabilities. Morley said that as the weaponry that can threaten warships increases, so must the defensive capabilities aboard the vessels in danger. It's important to invest in missile stockpiles and ensure that NATO defense industrial bases can produce enough and ships can carry enough should they sail into a fight. The days "of driving around with a silo of ammunition that never gets used is sadly now in the past," he said, explaining that "ships routinely come back from the Red Sea, for example, having expended ammunition, and they need to be resupplied and then get back out on patrol." US Navy warships, for instance, have expended significant quantities of SM-series interceptor missiles for air defense. Air defense isn't just about numbers. It's also about dollars. The rise of inexpensive strike drones — some just tens of thousands of dollars apiece — as a tool of naval warfare has NATO forces trying to figure out how they can cheaply defeat these threats without wasting a surface-to-air missile costing millions. The aim is to bring the cost difference between the threat and the interceptor much closer to parity. "I think the mindset needs to be layered defense," Morley said. Warships need the expensive, higher-end missiles to deal with sophisticated threats. But breaking the cost-curve challenge means having a range of capabilities so complex interceptors aren't expended on the simple threats. American Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, for instance, are kitted with options like the M2 Browning .50 caliber machine guns, Mark 38 turret systems, five-inch artillery cannons, and a variety of surface-to-air missiles. These weapons allow the warships to confront a range of threats, though some options, like the deck guns, come with drawbacks, such as permitting threats to get much closer to warships than desired. Big platforms aren't obsolete Adm. Pierre Vandier, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, who oversees alliance modernization efforts, said emerging technologies, like drones, have created new problems for larger platforms like warships, as has been the case in the Black Sea. Anything that exists on the water could effectively be hit. Vandier identified uncrewed systems as one of the biggest changes in naval warfare over the past decade and said one risk is that a warship could be overwhelmed by a swarm of drones. "You need to find ways on the ships to be protected from that and to engage multiple targets at the same time," he said. That could be kinetic, involving a physical strike, or some alternative, like electronic warfare. NATO is working to incorporate lessons learned from Ukraine and the Red Sea into its combat training. At last month's Formidable Shield 25 exercise, US sailors practiced using the deck guns to shoot down small quadcopter drones that they could face in a swarm attack. They also practiced defending against uncrewed surface vehicles like the ones Ukraine has used to batter Russia's Black Sea fleet. Exercises such as Formidable Shield allow allied navies to practice navigating air defense challenges and learn how to engage cheaper threats with cheaper defenses, thus saving the more expensive methods for the higher-end threats. Despite the growing number of threats to warships, Vandier said the rise of drones doesn't necessarily render them obsolete. Aircraft carriers, the flagships of a fleet, can project force globally with embarked aviation. They travel in heavily defended strike groups, making the carriers particularly formidable and hard to reach for enemy attacks. "To get to a carrier, you have layers," Vandier said. "It's a battle between the shield and the sword. My personal feeling is that the story is not finished for the big platforms. Not yet."
Hamilton Spectator
3 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Carney travelling to Europe for security, defence talks with EU, NATO
OTTAWA - Prime Minister Mark Carney will depart for Europe on Sunday for back-to-back summits where he is expected to make major commitments for Canada on security and defence. Carney will be joined by Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, Defence Minister David McGuinty and secretary of state for defence procurement Stephen Fuhr at the EU and NATO summits, where military procurement and diversifying supply chains will top the agendas. The international meetings come as Canada looks to reduce its defence procurement reliance on the United States due to strained relations over tariffs and President Donald Trump's repeated talk about Canada becoming a U.S. state. Carney will fly first to Brussels, Belgium, starting the trip with a visit to the Antwerp Schoonselhof Military Cemetery where 348 Canadian soldiers are buried. He will also meet with Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. At the EU-Canada summit, Anand and McGuinty are expected to sign a security and defence agreement with the EU in what one European official described Friday as one of the most ambitious deals Europe has ever signed with a third country. The agreement will open the door to Canada's participation in the ReArm Europe initiative, allowing Canada to access a 150-billion-euro loan program for defence procurement, called Security Action for Europe. An EU official briefing reporters on Friday said once the procurement deal is in place, Canada will have to negotiate a bilateral agreement with the European Commission to begin discussions with member states about procurement opportunities. A Canadian official briefing reporters on the summit Saturday said the initial agreement will allow for Canada's participation in some joint procurement projects. However, a second agreement will be needed to allow Canadian companies to bid. At the EU-Canada summit, leaders are also expected to issue a joint statement to underscore a willingness for continued pressure on Russia, including through further sanctions, and call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. After Brussels, Carney heads to The Hague in the Netherlands for the NATO leaders' summit on Tuesday and Wednesday. There, Carney will meet with the King of the Netherlands and later with leaders of Nordic nations to discuss Arctic and transatlantic security. At the NATO summit, Carney will take part in bilateral meetings with other leaders. The summit agenda includes a social dinner hosted by the king and queen of the Netherlands and a two-and-a-half hour meeting of the North Atlantic Council. NATO allies are expected to debate a plan to hike alliance members' defence spending target to five per cent of national GDP. NATO data shows that in 2024, none of its 32 members spent that much. The Canadian government official who briefed reporters on background says the spending target and its timeline are still up for discussion, though some allies have indicated they would prefer a seven-year timeline while others favour a decade. Canada hasn't hit a five- per- cent defence spending threshhold since the 1950s and hasn't reached the two per cent mark since the late 1980s. NATO says that, based on its estimate of which expenditures count toward the target, Canada spent $41 billion in 2024 on defence, or 1.37 per cent of GDP. That's more than twice what it spent in 2014, when the two per cent target was first set; that year, Canada spent $20.1 billion, or 1.01 per cent of GDP, on defence. In 2014, only three NATO members achieved the two per cent target — the U.S., the U.K., and Greece. In 2025, all members are expected to hit it. Any agreement to adopt a new spending benchmark must be ratified by all 32 NATO member states. Former Canadian ambassador to NATO Kerry Buck told The Canadian Press the condensed agenda is likely meant to 'avoid public rifts among allies,' describing Trump as an 'uncertainty engine.' 'The national security environment has really, really shifted,' Buck said, adding allies next door to Russia face the greatest threats. 'There is a high risk that the U.S. would undercut NATO at a time where all allies are increasingly vulnerable.' Trump has suggested the U.S. might abandon its mutual defence commitment to the alliance if member countries don't ramp up defence spending. 'Whatever we can do to get through this NATO summit with few public rifts between the U.S. and other allies on anything, and satisfy a very long-standing U.S. demand to rebalance defence spending, that will be good for Canada because NATO's good for Canada,' Buck said. Carney has already made two trips to Europe this year — the first to London and Paris to meet with European allies and the second to Rome to attend the inaugural mass of Pope Leo XIV. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 22, 2025.
