Zelenskyy’s criticism of NATO summit part of ‘military diplomacy’, FM says

Ukraine is engaged in ‘military diplomacy’, which is why president Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted a sharp message on social media, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

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Speaking on national television, Mr Kuleba explained that Mr Zelenskyy’s tweet on 11 July, which called the absence of a timeframe for Kyiv’s invitation to NATO "unprecedented and absurd", "did not refer to all the decisions of the summit, but only to a specific sentence about the invitation".

"And it came out because we always fight to the end, and this was our step as part of the diplomatic struggle, the details of which no one outside really knows.

"But this was another indication that Ukraine never gives up and in any situation fights to the end, until the desired result is achieved," the minister added.

According to Mr Kuleba, work on the invitation will continue and there is no doubt Ukraine will receive it.

"But the events of Tuesday should be viewed through the prism of the fact that we have military diplomacy. We are always fighting.

"And the decisions that were then made in a comprehensive manner... multiplied by the support packages that were announced right there at the summit by the partners – either openly or behind closed doors…

"When you look at all this in a complex, you come to the conclusion that … the results of the summit are good, but if we had received an invitation, they would have been perfect," Mr Kuleba concluded.

At a meeting Tuesday, the North Atlantic Alliance’s leaders agreed to remove a membership action plan stage for Ukraine on its way to NATO membership, but did not extend an invitation to join, something that Kyiv has been hoping for.

Ukraine had repeatedly said that it wanted to receive a political invitation to the Alliance at the NATO summit in Vilnius, although it appreciated that membership is out of the question until the end of the war.