Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, who left for an unscheduled visit to Kyiv on Wednesday, says he and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky have agreed that NATO must take advantage of the internal turmoil in Russia following the Wagner mutiny to bring Ukraine closer to the alliance.
“For Ukraine, this [turmoil in Russia] is a relief of the situation, but the most important thing, which was also stressed by President Zelensky, is that we must not let this favourable momentum out of our hands and we must make use of it, also bearing in mind the Vilnius summit,” Nausėda told BNS by phone from Kyiv.
Lithuania hopes NATO members will agree on a clear perspective for Ukraine membership in Vilnius in July. At least for the time being, they are split on political commitment to Ukraine.
According to Nausėda, the discussion on Ukraine’s NATO membership prospects is the most difficult of all issues at the moment, but “we cannot leave Ukraine in a grey area, making promises but not giving a very clear algorithm on how to make the NATO membership happen after the war”.
“Repeating the Bucharest wording is simply inappropriate in the current situation,” Nausėda said, referring to the declaration of the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit, which said Ukraine would become a NATO member one day.
Ukrainian representatives confirmed several months ago that Zelensky was planning to come to Vilnius for the NATO summit. However, there have been reports lately that the outcome of the Vilnius meeting could be disappointing for Kyiv.
Nausėda says he still expects both Zelensky and Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska to come to Vilnius, adding that the Ukrainian president is not demonstrating disappointment. Quite the contrary, he is still trying to convince the more sceptical Western countries about the NATO commitments acceptable to Kyiv.
“In fact, he is very energetic and he understands that he’s also a participant in the decision-making process,” Nausėda said. “His word is very important and we have to take advantage of this factor.”
“I would be very surprised if President Zelensky didn’t come to Vilnius. [...] We are looking forward to welcoming both of them. We don’t know exactly how much time the agenda will allow them to stay but we very much hope to see both of them in Vilnius.”
The two leaders also agreed that Russia was weakened after the Wagner mercenary mutiny and that President Vladimir Putin is no longer controlling the situation as much as he would like to.
“This is a big reputational loss for the regime and it will happen again,” Nauseda said.
The NATO summit in Vilnius will take place on July 11-12.
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