Zelensky to attend crunch NATO summit in Vilnius as Ukraine-Russia war grinds on

07 July 2023 , 13:54

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will speak in Lithuania next week (Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend next week’s crunch NATO summit, the alliance boss revealed today.

Hero leader Mr Zelensky will join leaders from the military coalition’s 31 nations at the meeting in Lithuania from Tuesday. He is expected to urge counterparts to boost their support for Kyiv as its bitter 17-month war with Russia grinds on.

Speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels today, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Mr Zelensky would take part in a new body setup to help Kyiv.

“President Zelensky will join us for the inaugural meeting of the new NATO-Ukraine Council,” said Mr Stoltenberg. “This will be a platform for crisis consultation and decision-making, where we all sit as equals to address shared security concerns.”

Former Norwegian PM Mr Stoltenberg, who has just agreed a second, one-year extension to his term of office, pledged allies would “take further, major steps to strengthen our deterrence and defence”.

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Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was speaking in Brussels (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

He said the alliance was already helping Ukraine “come even closer to NATO and NATO membership”, with mounting calls for Kyiv to be fast-tracked into the organisation. He stressed allies were helping Mr Zelensky’s regime switch from Soviet-era military hardware to gear used by NATO.

He also hoped countries would agree to boost annual defence spending beyond the NATO target of 2% of each nation’s GDP. Currently, just 11 of NATO’s 31 countries meet the benchmark. PMs from Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea, as well as leaders from the EU are also due to take part in the Vilnius summit.

Speaking at a pre-summit briefing tonight from Washington DC, the US National Security Council’s senior director for Europe Amanda Sloat said: “This will certainly be a historic summit at a very important moment in history.”

The US ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith, said Mr Zelensky “will be well received, see resounding support for Ukraine’s relationship with the alliance and will find himself holding a whole collection of concrete deliverables that signals a longer-term commitment to Ukraine from the NATO alliance”.

American officials said the US President would travel to Helsinki for a US-Nordic summit in the Finnish capital after the NATO meeting in Vilnius.

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Ben Glaze