On Monday, a day before the NATO summit in Vilnius, leaders of Türkiye and Sweden reached an agreement that finally lifts Türkiye's blockade of Sweden's NATO membership.

However, no compromise was reached on Ukraine.

Now, the "Ukrainian formula" in the NATO summit decision must be agreed upon at the level of heads of state. There is a high probability that Biden, opposed by practically all of Europe, will agree to a decision that includes a certain format of inviting Ukraine to NATO membership.

You can read more in the article by the editor of EuroPravda, Sergiy Sydorenko (from Vilnius): "Green Light for Sweden, Yellow Light for Ukraine: NATO Summit Prepares Historic Decisions for New Members."

Lithuania, as the host country of this year's NATO summit, decided not to simulate "neutrality" regarding Ukraine's future membership in the Alliance, but instead fully engaged in the struggle for such a decision.

And it was not only the government but the whole country that joined in such lobbying efforts.

This PR, by the way, should not be underestimated. Based on the discussion in Western media about whether Ukraine should be admitted to NATO, Lithuania's persistence as a NATO member state carried real weight.

In addition, in these days, there was intense and uncompromising diplomatic maneuvering.

On Monday afternoon, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba tweeted what seemed like a sensation: he stated that the Alliance had reached internal consensus to drop the Membership Action Plan (MAP) for Ukraine.

It meant changing the membership procedure for Ukraine and allowing its rapid accession, following the scenario of Finland and Sweden.

Kuleba's tweet was both true and misleading at the same time!

Indeed, the Alliance agreed that Ukraine would join NATO without the MAP, i.e., by the rapid procedure but this agreement was reached a month ago after discussing the idea at a special meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers in Oslo.

Since then, the agreement has been kept secret in order to present it as a "victory" for Ukraine at the summit.

Kuleba effectively undermined those plans. He had stated that before the start of the summit when no foreign leaders had arrived in Lithuania yet – meaning that canceling the MAP could no longer be recorded as an "achievement of Vilnius."

It is very likely that the Ukrainian minister's tweet launched a planned and coordinated campaign with the involvement of Ukraine's friendly states to raise the stakes. Now, the summit has to take another step towards Ukraine's membership.

There is a high probability that this (fairly obvious and not very hidden) diplomatic spectacle had two main spectators: US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Their negotiators were sending signals that Berlin and Washington preferred to limit themselves to the "MAP gift."

Kyiv and its allies want to convince the US and Germany that Ukraine should also receive a formal invitation to membership in Vilnius.

At the same time, according to European Pravda, a small but inconspicuous victory for Ukraine took place behind the scenes on Monday: NATO member states' diplomats failed to agree on the final summit decision. This is very good news. Now, the "Ukrainian formula" will have to be personally agreed upon by the Alliance leaders.

There is a chance to convince Biden, especially since practically all of Europe is on Ukraine's side.

However, the most inspiring news on Monday was not about Ukraine but about Sweden. At the end of the day on July 10th, it became known that Türkiye had given its consent to Sweden's NATO accession.

Of course, the implementation of this agreement is still ahead. But the way in which a severe public conflict was resolved shows that nothing is truly impossible on the NATO stage. We hope the same for Ukraine.