NATO could not agree on Ukraine's membership

NATO members have not reached a consensus on Ukraine's accession to the alliance, Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana said.

"At the moment we do not see a consensus within NATO," Geoana said in an interview with the Romanian news agency dcnews.ro, Gazeta.ru reports. 

He believes that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy understands that during the ongoing conflict, the topic of Ukraine's accession to NATO "should be postponed."

At the same time, he said, this does not mean that certain decisions will not be taken at the NATO summit in Vilnius on 11-12 July, including the upgrading of the NATO-Ukraine Commission to the level of the NATO-Ukraine Council.

Ukraine is now closer to NATO and Western democracies than ever before, the official stressed.

The deputy secretary general of the alliance added that at the summit in Vilnius, the leaders of the member states will approve the most important change in military strategy and planning in the last 50 years.