© Reuters. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler attend a meeting on the eve of the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania on July 10, 2023. REUTERS/Ev Herr
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Written by John Irish, Steve Holland, and Andreas Sitas
VILNIUS (Reuters) – Ukraine will receive a “positive and strong message” on its way to membership on Tuesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, as leaders of the Western military alliance meet to discuss the fallout from Russia’s invasion that brought war to their doorstep. .
Divisions among the 31 NATO members mean there will be no direct invitation for Ukraine to join, something Moscow says would threaten its national security.
But Stoltenberg said Kiev would get more military aid and facilitate formal conditions for accession, as well as a new form of cooperation with the alliance, the so-called NATO-Ukraine Council.
“I am sure it will be a positive and strong message about Ukraine and the way forward for membership,” Stoltenberg said before hosting a summit in the Lithuanian capital.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the meeting would send a “positive signal” about Kiev’s membership application. Diplomats were optimistic as negotiators neared a final agreement.
US President Joe Biden, speaking alongside Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, whose country is deeply concerned about the consequences of the Russian war in Ukraine for Eastern Europe, reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to the alliance.
“Our pledge to be with you is unwavering,” he said.
The summit is also set to approve NATO’s first comprehensive plans since the end of the Cold War to defend against attack from Russia.
Moscow criticized the two-day summit. The official RIA news agency quoted a senior Russian diplomat in Vienna, who warned him that Europe would be the first to face “catastrophic consequences” if the war in Ukraine escalated.
While NATO members agree Kiev could not join in during the war, they disagree about how quickly that could happen thereafter and under what circumstances.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is due to attend the Vilnius meeting, has been pressing NATO for a clear path for Ukraine to join once the war is over. On Tuesday, he said Ukrainian forces were distancing Russia’s aggression from Europe.
“The eastern borders of Ukraine, the borders of our state and the positions of our warriors are the line that the Russian dictatorship will never cross again,” he said on Twitter.
Ukraine is waiting, Sweden is on its way
NATO members in Eastern Europe have supported Kiev’s position, saying that putting Ukraine under NATO’s collective security umbrella is the best way to deter Russia from attacking again.
Countries like the United States and Germany were more wary, wary of any move they feared could draw NATO into direct conflict with Russia and possibly spark a world war.
NATO was formed in 1949 with the primary objective of countering the dangers of a Soviet attack on Allied territory.
The NATO-Ukraine Council, scheduled for its first session in Vilnius on Wednesday, is not unlike the coordination platform NATO has built with Russia since 2002. That stalled after Moscow annexed Crimea from Kiev in 2014 and then continued to support rebel fighters in the east. Ukraine.
Stoltenberg said Ukraine can now skip the Membership Action Plan (MAP) – a process to achieve political, economic and military goals before becoming a NATO member.
Lithuania’s ambassador to NATO said the summit would commit 500 million euros annually in aid to Ukraine, including medical supplies and mine clearance. Norway said it would increase its military aid to Kiev.
“It is important that they win. It is important for our common security,” Foreign Minister Anken Huitfeldt told Reuters.
While Ukraine was set to be kept waiting, another country seems to have made a breakthrough on its way to NATO membership.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan late Monday approved Sweden’s bid to join parliament for ratification, appearing to end months of opposition that has soured the bloc.
It was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that prompted Sweden – and its northern neighbor Finland – to abandon decades of military non-alignment and apply to join NATO.
Finland became the 31st member of NATO in April, but Sweden’s accession has been held up by a row with Turkey, with Erdogan accusing Sweden of not doing enough to crack down on the militants, whom Ankara considers terrorists.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Erdogan agreed to intensify cooperation in the fight against terrorism. Sullivan said the United States also promised to move forward with the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.
Biden said he was “not at all surprised” that Türkiye lifted the veto.
Back in Kiev, the Ukrainian military said Russia launched drone attacks on the southern port of Odessa and the country’s capital itself in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
