Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi is critical of NATO leaders not giving a clearer promise about when the country can become a member of NATO. Today, he is the main figure at the NATO summit in Vilnius.
Ukraine has three main priorities at the summit, says President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on his way in.
– The first is new weapons packages to support our army on the battlefield, he says.
The second concerns the formal invitation to NATO that Ukraine is seeking. NATO leaders agreed at the summit on a new promise of future NATO membership for Ukraine, but an invitation can only come when the allied countries agree on it and Ukraine has met the requirements, according to NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.
Zelenskyi will also raise the issue of security guarantees.
– The third thing I will talk about and fight for is security guarantees for Ukraine on the road to NATO, he says.
New council meeting
NATO’s heads of state and government are concluding their two-day meeting in Vilnius today.
Volodymyr Zelenskyj arrived in the Lithuanian capital already on Tuesday. He gave a speech in front of thousands of people in the center of Vilnius and in the evening he had dinner in the presidential palace together with the other leaders.
During the day, there will also be a meeting of the newly established NATO-Ukraine Council for the first time.
The continued support for Ukraine has been the obvious main topic at the summit. Among other things, a long-term support program for Ukraine to be able to adapt its defense to NATO has been decided. The NATO countries also want to speed up the path into NATO by shortening the membership process for Ukraine.
“absurd”
But Zelenskyy had hoped for a clearer path with a year for when the country can join the defense alliance. Even before the details of the plan were known, the president tweeted that it is “absurd” that NATO is not discussing a timetable for when Ukraine will be invited as a prospective member or for when NATO membership will be achieved.
Zelenskyj fears that a vague NATO promise opens the way for Ukrainian membership to become a bargaining chip in any future peace negotiations with Russia.
It could become a motive for Russia to continue the terror, according to the president. At lunchtime, Zelenskyj and Stoltenberg will have a joint press conference