Zelenskyy Plans to Attend NATO Summit in Vilnius – Ukrainian Ambassador

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plans to personally attend the NATO summit in Vilnius in July.

"We are planning this. The first thing we need is an invitation because Ukraine is not a member of NATO. We hope to get it and hope for a radical change in the situation related to the war in Ukraine," the diplomat said, when asked whether the president will be at the summit.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion on 24 February last year, Zelenskyy has visited the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Brussels.

The ambassador said that these visits, which began at the end of 2022, were rather more exceptions, since Zelenskyy has to stay in Kyiv.

"We expect a clear statement at the meeting in Vilnius that as soon as the war ends, Ukraine will become a member of NATO," Petro Beshta, the ambassador of Ukraine to Lithuania, said in an interview with Baltic news agency BNS. 

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted that the current priority for the Alliance is not Ukraine's membership, but helping it win the full-scale war against Russia.

On 30 September 2022, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine had signed an application for accelerated membership in the North Atlantic Alliance.