Ukraine will not be invited to join NATO at the upcoming alliance summit in Washington

Stoltenberg responded that the existence of a stronger NATO structure would not change the nature of the alliance’s defense and expressed confidence that the problem related to Hungary’s position could be resolved in the coming weeks.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain, Jose Manuel Albares, warned against duplicating the efforts of bilateral assistance, meaning assistance to Ukraine from the European Union (EU) and NATO.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani stated that “the devil is in the details”. “We have to see how it will work for each country, what the percentage can be,” Reuters quoted Tajani as saying. “We need a legal basis. This proposal is, of course, exciting and interesting, but before promising an exact figure, Ukraine would do better to evaluate, study and understand how, when and what can be done, who should do it.”

German Foreign Minister Annalene Burbock called the plan “correct and important.”

This was also welcomed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, Krišjānis Kariņš, expressing the assumption that the contributions could be 1% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of each member state.

“The New York Times” also states that the United States of America and Germany continue to oppose the proposal in Washington to start negotiations on Ukraine’s membership in NATO and advocate for the removal of this issue from the agenda. At the same time, the US and Germany want to set specific conditions that Ukraine can meet in order to start negotiations. So far, efforts to define these conditions have made little progress, and the situation could also change if Ukraine were to face the threat of defeat in a war against Russia.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Thursday, April 4, at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, that Kyiv is waiting for the allies’ decision on what the next steps should be towards the country’s membership in the alliance.

“We believe that Ukraine deserves to be a member of NATO, it should happen as soon as possible,” emphasized Kuleba.

He also emphasized that his “main greeting today will be [zenītraķetes] “Patriot”, which Kyiv has still not received in sufficient numbers to effectively counter Russia’s bandit airstrikes and rocket fire.

“Saving Ukrainian lives, saving Ukrainian economy, saving Ukrainian cities depends on the availability of Patriot and other defense systems,” Kuleba said.