Ukraine will join Nato after war, Stoltenberg says; estimates of 1,000 Russian daily casualties ‘plausible’, says UK – as it happened | Ukraine

Nato allies are following up and implementing the decisions we made on Ukraine and Nato membership at our summit in Vilnius in July this year. We made three important decisions. First of all we shortened Ukraine’s path to membership from a two-step process to one step process by removing the requirement for a membership action plan for Ukraine, so that step has already been taken.

Second, we have established a Nato-Ukraine Council which is an important body where Ukraine and all Nato allies meet around the same table with the same rights, the same obligations, and that’s a body where you can make decisions together, so that moves Ukraine of course significantly closer to Nato by establishing a decision making body. That council will meet for the first time at the foreign ministerial level this week.

Thirdly we have agreed a comprehensive, substantial program for ensuring full interoperability between Ukrainian forces and Nato forces. This will of course help them also to come closer to us, that they are more capable of operating together with Nato forces. On top of that, of course, the fact that Nato allies are delivering F-16s, battle tanks, artillery, training; all of that is in a very practical way, helping Ukraine to come closer to Nato because they are more and more capable of operating and working together with Nato soldiers and based on Nato doctrines and and training procedures.

It’s too early to say exactly what we will be the decision at the Washington summit. All allies agree that in the midst of war full membership is not possible but of course we will continue to look into to address how we can move Ukraine and Nato even closer together.