Ukraine is Moving to a New Level of Cooperation with NATO
For the first time, the NATO-Ukraine Council will be held on the sidelines of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Summit, which will take place on 11-12 July in Vilnius.
The meeting in this new format was announced on NATO's official website.
The summit programme states that the first meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council at the level of heads of state and government will begin on 12 July at 13:00 local time.
The new format will replace the existing NATO-Ukraine Commission. The last meeting of the Commission took place on 15 June this year after a more than six-year pause caused by Hungary's blockade.
It is expected that the new format will provide for Ukraine's equality with other partners of the Alliance and expand opportunities for consultations and decisions of "common interest".
"If the Allies agree to establish the NATO-Ukraine Council, it will actually mean that 32 equal members will sit at the same table. It will also be a decision-making body... It will be a structure for much deeper cooperation. It will reflect a very strong strengthening of the political partnership between Ukraine and NATO Allies," Jens Stoltenberg said earlier.
Ukraine continues to make efforts to join NATO. On 30 September 2022, Ukraine signed an application for accelerated integration into the Alliance. Since then, there have been ongoing discussions among NATO members about the feasibility of Kyiv's accession to the Alliance.
For Kyiv, the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius will be perhaps the most important political event in the near future. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly stated the importance of providing a clear plan for his country's accession to the Alliance.
At the same time, the head of state has requested that Ukraine be provided with security guarantees that would allow the country to have sustainable financial and military support until the end of the Russian war.
Some experts believe that such "guarantees" were recently adopted during a meeting of EU member states in Brussels.
Ukraine applied to join the North Atlantic Alliance in September 2022. Since the application was submitted, Kyiv has been trying to secure as much support as possible from Western countries.