Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hopes that at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Kyiv will receive a signal from allies about the achievable prospect of joining the Alliance.

Zelenskyy underlined that Ukraine would like to hear "something more than just the "open doors" of the Alliance" from partners at the Vilnius summit.

"We are realists, we understand that we will not join NATO while the war is ongoing. Even during the war, we want to hear a clear signal that we will join NATO after the war," he said at a joint briefing with the Prime Ministers of the Netherlands and Belgium in The Hague.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, commenting on the question about Ukraine and NATO, recalled the Alliance Secretary-General's phrase that Ukraine "belongs to the Euro-Atlantic family" and "will one day be in NATO."

"The Netherlands supports Ukraine's ambitions for NATO membership. We are now working to make a clear step forward at the Vilnius summit and not return to formulations that were at the Bucharest summit (in 2008 – Ed.), or any others. It will be discussed in the next 4-6 weeks," Rutte added.

The day before in Helsinki, Zelenskyy expressed the position that Ukraine should become the 33rd NATO member following Sweden.

Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, stated that Ukraine expects a kind of "schedule for joining NATO" from the Vilnius summit, and cited his arguments for why Ukraine's membership is beneficial for both Kyiv and the Alliance itself.

According to the German agency DPA, some key NATO members, including Germany and the United States, do not yet want specific decisions on Ukraine's membership in the Alliance.

Read also: NATO, not "security guarantees": why Kyiv should focus on one goal (Ukr)